Task Force Desperate

by Peter Nealen

  “I’ve got eyes on Khasam,” Bob whispered over the radio from the overwatch position, which was actually the other Range Rover, where he was crouched over a laptop, controlling the tiny Aeroseeker UAV that was hovering over the crowd. “He’s standing on top of a Nissan van, with a bullhorn. Can’t make out what he’s saying, but it’s loud, it’s angry, and it’s aimed to the north.”

  “Who else is around him?” I asked.

  “Looks like a bunch of his goons,” was the reply after a moment. “Nobody who wants to look important.”

  “Probably too much to hope for that we might be able to bag more than one of the assholes,” Larry said. He was lounging in the passenger seat, one massive arm resting on the open window. His other hand was down on the butt of his STI, which was holstered on the side of the seat.

  I took another turn, this one leading away from the traffic circle where the day’s crowd was gathered. The flaw in our roving tracker plan was becoming obvious now that we were on the ground. The fact was not all that many people in Djibouti City drove that much, and only a few of the streets were fit for cars. Our orbits were severely limited, and we were running the risk of being too far out of position to pick Khasam up when he decided to leave.

  I was looking for a place to park, within a distance where we could close fast on foot, when I got a call from Imad.

  “Hillbilly, Spearchucker.” He sounded worried.

  I tapped the push-to-talk. “Send it, Spearchucker.”

  “Just a heads-up. This guy is pushing. It’s the same bullshit as always, but he’s trying to get the crowd really riled up, and I think he’s succeeding.” There was a lot of background noise; Imad was sub-vocalizing into his bone mic. “A lot of the usual crap about Western exploitation, the president is a thief and a puppet, blah, blah, blah. But he’s calling for a lot of blood and violence.” Another roar of sound drowned him out. “He just called for the president’s severed head to be paraded through the streets.” It was getting really hard to hear him through the crowd’s yelling. “This is going to turn into a riot any minute now,” Imad said.

  “Shiny has eyes-on,” Alek called. “Get clear.” None of us wanted to lose Imad, and if he got caught in a riot, we very well could.

  “Moving.” He signed off.

  I found our spot, and pulled off the main street into the market on the Rue de Bender. We could still watch down the street, where the crowd was milling. What we could see from here was not pretty. The market was almost deserted, and the people we could see out on the street were heading indoors, fast. You could almost feel the rage in the air.

  As I shut down the engine, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and followed it, to see what looked like a platoon of Djiboutian army soldiers, in uniform, and armed, coming into the market area, and starting south down the Rue de Bender.

  They weren’t moving fast, kind of a slow, hesitant walk. The looks on their faces as they sort-of marched past our Land Rover was a mix of put-on courage at best, and sheer terror at worst. They were dressed in a mix of chocolate-chip and desert tri-color cammies, with Vietnam-era steel pots and Y-harnesses. Their weapons were even more of a haphazard mix. I saw M16s, FN-FALs, AKMs, a FAMAS or two, a Galil, and several G-3s. The guy with the huge officer shoulder-boards was in back, chivvying the rest on.

  “Fuck me,” Larry said, as they trudged past us. He keyed his comm. “Spearchucker, Monster. I hope you’re clear, buddy, because there’s about a platoon of National Army troops headed for that crowd, and they look shaky enough to start shooting pretty quick.”

  “That’s just one section,” Bob announced, from overwatch. “It looks like at least a company is coming south, and they’ve got armored vehicles behind them. Looks like a mix of a couple Ratels and about a half dozen AMLs. None of the infantry have riot gear, either. Just weapons.”

  “Keep eyes on Khasam,” Alek called. “Spearchucker, are you clear yet?”

  There was another burst of noise, the roar of several thousand human throats sounding their anger, and then Imad could be heard, barely. “I am…st edge of…tight…can’t…”

  “Spearchucker, I don’t care if you have to shoot your way out, get the fuck off that street,” Alek said. Even over the radio, his voice sounded tight, stressed. I found myself gripping the steering wheel of the Defender until my knuckles turned white. I forced myself to relax. Imad was good; he knew what he was doing.

  “Coconut, Spearchucker.” There was less background noise this time, and I started to breathe a little easier. I could see Larry relax just a bit, too. “I’m out, di-di-ing east on a back alley. I’ll link up back at the compound.”

  “Roger.” Alek sounded about as relieved as I felt. Larry and I looked at each other, and I raised my eyebrows. He blew out a sigh of relief.

  The troops were getting closer to the crowd, which had noticed them for the first time. The northern edge of the mob, and it was a mob now, was starting to turn to face them. There was just a lot of shouting and fist-waving, but the first rock was only a matter of time. And the way those boys were keyed up, it would turn into a blood bath as soon as it happened.

  I really didn’t want to stick around for that. Aside from the likelihood of stray rounds coming our way, I can’t say I particularly care for watching massacres.

  “Shiny, where’s our boy?” I called. Khasam was our whole reason for being out here. We couldn’t let the impending disaster on the streets keep us from focusing on the mission.

  “He’s still on top of the van,” Bob reported. “Only now he’s got an AK, and he’s waving it at the government troops.”

  “Fuckfuckfuckfuck,” Larry started muttering, thumping his meaty fist against the door. “Motherfucker’s going to get himself martyred, and we’re back to square one.”

  “No, wait,” Bob said. “Hold on a second…” There was a sudden flurry of supersonic cracks overhead, followed a fraction of a second later by the rattle of an AK-47. “Fuck. He just shot at the troops, then jumped down off the van.”

  We could see the chaos as the troops down the street tried to scramble to get out of the line of fire. The crowd saw their reaction and roared, smelling their fear. The mob surged forward, and rocks started to fly.

  An AML armored car was rolling past us. The vehicle commander was up out of the turret, his hands on the spade grips of an M2 .50 cal. He racked the gun as the car came closer, but didn’t fire, yet.

  “He’s moving,” Bob called. “Looks like he’s heading northeast, into the tight alleys. Monster, Hillbilly, he’s yours. Move fast, I could lose him any minute in there.”

  “I’m on it. Give me some directions,” I said, as I bailed out of the Defender.

  “Go to the southeast corner of the market, and keep pushing up that road. If you turn south after about a block, I should be able to talk you onto him.”

  I did as he said, even as I heard all hell break loose around me. The chatter of small arms fire was quickly joined by the heavy pounding of at least one heavy machine gun. “Hillbilly, Monster,” Larry called. “I’m moving. The National Army just opened up on the crowd, and somebody is shooting back from the buildings. It’s a full-on firefight out here.” There was a sudden loud bang. “Oh shit, that AML just got hit with an RPG.”

  Great, I thought, as I wove through the abandoned market stalls at a run, trying not to slip on the trash and puddles on the ground. As if it hadn’t been bad enough here already, Khasam had just managed to provoke a massacre. Nobody was pulling this country back from the brink now.

  The alleys were deserted, except for a handful of people who peered around corners or out of windows. They knew what was happening out there on the street, and they were scared shitless. Smart of them.

  Bob was keeping me pretty well abreast of Khasam’s movements, but he kept losing him for brief periods as he went under overhanging roofs or rounded corners quickly. The good news was the guy was making a pretty much straight line, as much as he could. “It looks lik
e he might be heading for Block 215,” Bob guessed. “If you head there, you should be able to catch him. Just be advised, he’s still got a couple of his goons with him, and they’ve got AKs.”

  “Roger.” I ran harder, hoping to get ahead of him, to where I could hunker down and watch. I had no illusions about going into his bolt-hole alone. I just wanted to see where his bolt-hole was. And hoped that I didn’t run into any tribal checkpoints along the way.

  Just as I thought that, I turned a corner and saw a barricade across the alley, with a couple of locals squatting in front of it. They were chewing khat, and one had an ancient-looking, rusty FAL across his knees. The other had what looked like a Browning HiPower shoved in his shorts, in front of his shirt.

  I changed directions fast, ducking down another side alley. I was going away from the path I wanted, but better to detour than get caught. I went about a half a block, then turned back the way I had been going before the checkpoint and kept jogging through the dusty, debris-littered alleyways. At least they didn’t twist and turn much, which made it easy.

  “He’s almost to that big building on Block 213,” Bob reported. We had numbered all the blocks in the city, for ease of reference.

  If I had my bearings right, I was almost a block ahead of him. I dashed another three blocks, and slowed down to loiter where I could hopefully see him pass, two blocks to my south.

  “All right, I got him.” Khasam was a skinny, chicken-necked motherfucker, dressed in the loose shirt and baggy pants that seemed to be the national dress in Djibouti. There were two more with him, just as scrawny, and considerably less than intimidating, except for the AKMs they were carrying. Of course, an AKM carried over the shoulder by the barrel, like one of them was doing, is a little less than immediately useful, but I was glad to see they didn’t seem all that well-trained.

  None of them were really looking around; they must have figured they were home free. Fair enough. I wasn’t going to touch them now, anyway. I watched them continue down the alley they were on, and trotted ahead to catch them at the next intersection. I got to where I could see Block 215, and peered around the corner.

  Okay. There were the professionals. There were guards on the low wall around the three warehouse-sized buildings. They looked alert, armed, and they didn’t look local. There were a few black Africans, Somali Issas unless I missed my guess, but the majority of them were unmistakably Middle Eastern. They were still dressed locally, but their weapons looked reasonably well-maintained, at least as far as I could see from two blocks away, and they weren’t holding them like Daddy’s shotgun.

  “Monster, this is Hillbilly,” I called, very quietly. I probably needn’t have bothered, since the cacophony of the fighting in the streets to the west would have drowned me out. It actually sounded like it was getting closer. “I think I have eyes-on Khasam’s bolt-hole. He’s not being subtle about it, either.” I counted. “I have six armed males on the north side of the compound; appear to be locals and Arabs. Small arms, but no heavies in sight.”

  “Roger,” Larry replied. “Coconut, you copy?”

  “Affirm,” Alek replied. “Shiny, you have eyes on?”

  “I do,” Bob said. “Taking pictures now. Be advised, I‘m running out of loiter time.”

  “Hillbilly, Coconut,” Alek said. “Stay in the area for now, but try not to get noticed. Let’s make sure he’s sticking. Once we know he’s going to be there for the night, we can set up the hit.”

  “Roger,” I whispered, listening even more intently to the street battle. This could get interesting.

  As it turned out, I didn’t end up having to dodge a running street fight. About a half hour after it started, the shooting started to peter out. There were still sporadic bursts of gunfire, and a pall of black smoke hung over the main streets to the west, mostly from burning automobiles and armored cars. But somebody had apparently come out on top. I just couldn’t tell who from where I was.

  I did a couple of orbits of the target compound, trying my best to look like a reporter or a tourist. I couldn’t say how well it worked, as it looked like I was the only white guy on the street. Most of the real reporters were holed up in the European quarter, and the tourists were gone. That had to be a hit to the local economy, too.

  People were starting to venture back out, with the fighting apparently over for the time being, and I had to start fending off the usual weirdness, like jackasses in shorts and no shirt claiming to be customs officials, not to mention the pickpockets. I guess as hard as I was trying to be inconspicuous, I still stood out too much. I was very glad that Larry was cruising back and forth on the Boulevard du General de Gaulle, only a couple of blocks away, and in constant radio contact. If the bad guys in the compound figured out that I was casing them, it could get a little hairy. I made a point of never looking directly at the compound when I might be in sight.

  The sun was going red behind the smoke. I squeezed the push-to-talk. “It’s getting dark, and he hasn’t come out yet. He’s sticking.”

  “Good to go,” Alek replied. “Come on in. Monster, Hillbilly’s inbound.”

  “Gotcha, Hillbilly,” Larry said. “De Gaulle and 13.”

  “Roger,” I answered. “En route.”

  I couldn’t make it look like I was dashing for extract, any more than I could afford to relax, just because I was getting away from Khasam and his jihadi buddies. I did risk a single glance back at the compound. See you soon, motherfuckers.

  Chapter 7

  The Range Rover slowed without ever quite stopping, and Jim and I bailed out, dashing into the shadows of the alley.

  It was just past one in the morning. Fortunately the moon was down already; we would have had to push regardless, but the lack of illum was handy. Add to that the fact that the power was out in large swathes of the city, and we had plenty of deep shadows to hide in, occasionally lit only by the sputtering glow of the fires that were burning near the market.

  The violence had continued sporadically throughout the evening. The short confrontation in the streets that I had mostly only heard had just been the beginning. The crowd had had its blood up, and attacked the National Army troops ferociously, especially after the front few ranks were gunned down by the scared soldiers. The loss of two of their armored cars to RPGs fired from roofs nearby had broken the government troops, and their attempt at riot control had turned into a bloody rout.

  Since then, bands of rebels had pushed into the government-controlled segments of the city, looting, burning, and killing. As near as we could tell, there wasn’t a lot of rhyme or reason to the killings; anyone who got in the way, who could be conveniently tagged as Western or a Western puppet was a target, which largely meant anyone who wasn’t part of the gangs.

  All of this was happening a couple of miles away from our target, which was fine with us.

  We weren’t going to be mistaken for locals tonight, if we were seen. Both of us were in full kit--assault vests, FAST helmets, and ATACS desert camouflage, with suppressed rifles, and pistols in drop holsters. NVGs revealed everything through the shadows, in an eerie green tint.

  Jim split off, cat-footing around to the north side of the ramshackle building where Mike had dropped us off. I went the other way, circling around toward the east side. I moved very carefully, watching where I put each step. All the trash made for a noise minefield in any Third World alley, and this one was no exception.

  I continued down the alley, making for the southeast corner of the target compound. As I got close, I heard a crack, immediately followed by what might have been the faint sound of a body falling.

  I carefully sidestepped around the corner, keeping behind my rifle. I had the scope off, and was running with the old PEQ-15 laser mounted on the forearm. NVGs make it difficult if not impossible to sight a rifle normally, so we mounted infrared lasers to give us an aiming point. It wasn’t as accurate as properly aimed fire, but at close quarters it more than did the job.

  There was the corner of th
e wall, and the crumbled gap in it that was Jim’s and my breach point. I saw a tiny blip of light green luminescence at the base of the gap, but no other thermal hits. I crept forward, half-crouched, my rifle at the low-ready. Jim was already at the corner, covering the breach point with his suppressed Mk 17. He turned his head as I came up, saw me, and went back to the gap. He took his hand off the foregrip to hold up one finger, and then gave a thumbs-down.

  I keyed my radio. “Coconut, Hillbilly. Kemosabe and I are in position. One tango down at the breach point.”

  “Roger,” came Alek’s muted voice. “There’s some activity at the front; looks like they heard something, but they’re not sure what.” There was a pause. “Shiny, Monster, you in position? We’ve got to kick this pig soon.”

  “This is Monster. Thirty seconds.”

  “We’ve got company,” Jim hissed. I started moving toward the breach point, even as I heard voices raised in Arabic. They’d spotted the body. “Coconut, Kemosabe. We’re made; we’ve got to go loud, now.”

  “Do it.” There was no hesitation in Alek’s reply, and I immediately heard the muted cracks of suppressed fire toward the front. I went in the breach point fast but smooth, coming around the crumbling edge of the wall with my rifle already coming level with the bright thermal silhouette of one of the tangos, who was walking warily toward his buddy’s corpse, his AK already half-lifted. The bright IR dot settled, and I squeezed the trigger twice. With two hushed cracks blending almost into one, the tango crumpled.

  Jim was right on my heels, and slammed two rounds into another tango coming around the corner of the building, just as I shot two more behind the first, tapping one in the chest twice, then shifting to the second as fast as my brain registered that the first was down.

  Colton and Nick were coming through behind us, to take inner cordon duties; making sure that not only did no squirters get out through our breach point, but that when we went in the house, nobody came in behind us and shot us in the back. They took a knee at the corner of the first house, positioned to cover the west and south sides. Jim and I dashed for the door.