Blood Oil

by James Phelan

  ON THE ROAD, NIGERIA

  “Less than fifty clicks to Lagos,” Captain Nix said over their tactical radios. He rode in the passenger seat of the lead Humvee, an M4 always ready in his lap.

  Already their travels had been epic. A stop to refuel had almost cost Top his life as someone took a pot-shot at him with a small-calibre rifle—the round was stuck in the side of his Kevlar helmet.

  “We got two technicals ahead!” his driver announced. Muzzles flashed. “Hostile, we’re taking fire!”

  Nix turned in his seat to talk to his RTO in the back. “See if we got any CAS yet,” Nix ordered him. Then he spoke to his team over their radio headsets: “Weapons free, engage targets at will!”

  The M240B mounted machine guns started up, the belt-fed 7.62 mm rounds disintegrated the smoking linkages down into the cabin of the Humvee.

  The hammer-like sounds striking their vehicle announced they were taking direct fire from the men in the two unmarked pick-ups ahead. The M1116 Humvee provided protection against 7.62 mm armour-piercing projectiles, 155 mm artillery air bursts and 6 kg anti-tank mine blasts. It could handle the fire it was receiving right now, but it still didn’t feel good to be in there. The drivers kept them moving fast, ninety clicks an hour, a hundred, one-ten—one of the target vehicles exploded in fire as they raced past.

  64

  LAGOS, NIGERIA

  He looked through a Schmidt-Cassegrain spotting scope at the main road below. Seven-kilometre range, perfect clarity, this scope was much better quality than what he’d expected would be supplied by Sir Alex. He tracked the main road—and finally Mendes’s convoy was approaching, on the open road that spanned a bridge over a tributary.

  He would have engaged them down there, in the grassed expanse that flanked the bridge, but the open space was too big an area to attack a much larger force from. He planned to use the urban environment of these suburban streets to his tactical advantage. More places for cover, more opportunities to pen them in. Plus, the IEDs being placed within the enclosed canyons of the two- and three-storey concrete apartment blocks would add to the bomb blasts. More force would be redirected in towards the road, more debris and shrapnel would be created, more chaos would ensue.

  He counted the beats in time until the three-vehicle convoy approached the hidden IEDs. The Mercedes G-Wagon with Mendes rode in the centre, a sedan front and back—big, heavy old BMWs. White occupants, military buzz-cuts—private security contractors. They were special-forces operatives—they wouldn’t like this road, especially when they entered the suburban street that led up the hill. They’d be well-armed, wary, alert.

  The vehicles passed through the last gap where he could see the road. He counted out the beats of their travel, matching the speed with the distance they still had to cover. The radio transceiver was in his hand, ready to thumb the detonator switch. Seconds away from the IEDs as—

  A bus came over the pass behind him, and rumbled on down towards the kill zone.

  Fox continued counting—watching as the bus thundered down the road, picking up speed. He willed it to slow and its airbrakes sounded—

  He flicked the switch. Within a second both IEDs went off.

  The dual thunderclap sounded and echoed around in the confines of the canyon-like street. The lead sedan was blown clear into the air, still flying as a flaming wreck as bits of bitumen and concrete and steel and glass showered down in front of the bus. Three seconds passed before the BMW crashed back down to earth and began melting into the road. The initial blast of fire and smoke that filled the air cleared enough for Fox to make out that Mendes’s vehicle had been hit, the second IED having punched its shaped penetrator through the driver’s door, leaving a fist-sized hole in the metal door panel. Beyond the shattered glass of the G-Wagon’s windscreen Fox saw a lifeless body being pushed out of the driver’s door, and he got a brief look at the new driver.

  Steve Mendes.

  The Mercedes G-Wagon reversed, the following BMW clearing the way with a handbrake turn as the two vehicles disappeared down an alley.

  Fox put the Land Rover into gear and gunned the 5.5 litre supercharged engine. It leaped off the mark, the big off-road tyres spitting up streams of gravel as the vehicle roared forward, lifting clear off the ground as it soared from the lip of the lookout towards the dirt road that led down into the neigh-bourhood. The Land Rover’s shock-absorbers protested as the heavy machine smacked back down to terra firma and screamed down the dirt and grass hill into the neighbourhood, ploughing through refuse and old tyres and timber fences of backyards. He kept his foot heavy on the gas as he bumped and grated the Land Rover down an alleyway, never slowing as—

  SMASH!

  He T-boned the BMW into the wall of a building. The front end of the Land Rover bent and the vehicle bounced back a metre. Fox’s number plate was imprinted in what had been the side doors of the sedan. The old 7-series BMW was crushed in on both doors, pinned hard into the facade of a building, some of the car punched through the crumbling concrete cinderblocks.

  Fox scanned to the right: the Merc G-Wagon kept on driving away as if oblivious to the carnage behind it.

  The four BMW occupants were shell-shocked, sprawled about as if none of them had worn seatbelts. One managed to get a shot off at Fox, the pistol round going wide. Fox unclicked his belt and got out, the P90 nestled into his shoulder, then let loose the magazine with two sweeps left to right of the BMW’s passenger compartment. Splinters of glass and steel and blood and bone replaced where solid mass had been just a moment ago. Spam in a can. Gunsmoke was still in the air as he tossed the P90, got in the Land Rover, manoeuvred around and went in pursuit of the G-Wagon that was rooster-tailing down the alley.

  His foot was to the floor again, the roar of the engine in his ears, then he stomped the brakes and made a hard turn to skip around a truck, then a car that flashed through an intersection.

  There, up ahead, taking a fast left, the G-Wagon.

  Fox was on the gas again, engine and tyres fighting to hurtle the two-tonne SUV into fast pursuit.

  Suddenly the window next to Fox’s head disintegrated. Automatic gunfire peppered his Land Rover. Fox’s back window shattered and he ducked under the dash as a full hail of bullets smashed through the back of his seat. Glass from the Land Rover’s windows and the foam from his seat were still in the air as he sat up and kept on driving. There, in his rear-view mirror, were his attackers—a Toyota pick-up, one driver, a couple of armed guys in the back.

  Fox kept his eyes ahead as he took a couple of sharp turns in pursuit of Mendes. With a long stretch of empty road ahead, he and Mendes left the Toyota pick-up behind. At a sweeping bend Fox flashed the Land Rover’s high-beams as he weaved through the traffic of the four-lane black-top of a highway. There were no Jersey barriers to separate the oncoming lanes and he used those lanes as much as his own to gain on the G-Wagon. There was a MOPOL sedan in on the chase now too, back behind the Toyota pick-up.

  The G-Wagon was only thirty metres ahead and Fox was closing fast. He swerved back into his lane and a truck blazed its horn as it flashed by where he had just been driving in the oncoming lane. Eighteen wheels raced by the window at warp speed.

  Red lights ahead. The G-Wagon went straight through at a hundred kilometres per hour; two cars swerving to avoid the collision ended up smashed together and took out a power pole that crashed to earth right across Fox’s lane. He hit the brakes, turned the wheel, the ABS fighting for grip as he let go of the brakes and stomped on the gas, the bonnet of the car lifting with the torque of the engine and the mass that had shifted onto the back axle as he navigated his way through the intersection. Ahead, the G-Wagon was purposefully bumping into cars to create chaos in its wake.

  The Toyota pick-up was still behind him but a good fifty metres back now, and falling back faster as Fox gained on Mendes. The shooters standing braced in the back tray could not let go and fire effectively with the fast manoeuvres taki
ng place. The MOPOL driver took the intersection carefully and the flash of a petrol tanker filled Fox’s rear-view mirror as it took out the MOPOL sedan. He ignored that and concentrated ahead. The G-Wagon was there to be taken down.

  Fox reached across the seat, had to lean right down and reach onto the passenger’s floor, from where he took the M4 with underslung M203 launcher. His attention was back up to the road ahead, and he had to duck in and out of the oncoming lane to overtake a lumbering truck, the body roll of the Land Rover protesting as the top-heavy 4WD wobbled back onto a straight path.

  Out of the side window he held the M4 by its mag, his index finger through the M203’s trigger-guard. He steadied its weight on the side-mirror, then floored the accelerator as the G-Wagon took a chicane in the road that turned onto the main south-heading highway. A six-lane blacktop, Jersey barriers separating the oncoming lane.

  The Land Rover bounced into the air as Fox hit the tyres onto the concrete guttering that lined the side of the chicane. He fought with the steering wheel to regain his drive-line and steady the car at eighty kilometres per hour, ninety, a hundred, one-ten … His hand holding the M4 steadied and he bumped two cars ahead of him out of the way and hit the gas full—the engine kicked down into third, then fourth—he was doing a hundred and fifty kilometres per hour and climbing fast.

  He closed on the G-Wagon ahead, which continued to bump its way through cars that then spun out of control, and Fox had to weave his way through the chaos of the highway. A Subaru wagon was sent corkscrewing its way down the road, and for Fox it was a case of gritting his teeth and driving right through it. The Land Rover smashed through the Japanese car like it was a speed bump, the dazed driver left clinging to his steering wheel as he sat on a bare steel chassis, nothing but him and the engine left unscathed in the middle of the road.

  The Toyota pick-up was still somewhere in his rear-view mirror, along with the distant blur of flashing red and blue lights.

  Fox wove between two out-of-control cars—each scraping and bumping into the Land Rover as he entered a clearing in the traffic—both he and the G-Wagon hit one hundred and eighty as he fumbled with his hand on the M203’s trigger, steady …

  The launcher coughed out its grenade. The 40 mm high-explosive round struck the corner of the tailgate of the Mercedes G-Wagon.

  What happened next seemed to occur in the same heartbeat. A massive explosion of fire, the tailgate was ripped off into the air and the back of the G-wagon was shredded open like someone had taken a can-opener to it. Fox slammed on his brakes as the G-Wagon slowed rapidly and began fishtailing wildly across the three lanes of the highway. Fox’s chunky tyres were designed for off-road use, they were smoking up under the braking pressure, and he was still travelling at over a hundred k’s per hour when he smashed into the rear of the Mercedes G-Wagon. His forward speed was instantly halved, and with both hands on the wheel he could not get control as the G-Wagon spun around in front of him like a spinning-top.

  Fox and Mendes locked eyes. It was the first time Mendes had seen his attacker and it happened with four, five, six revolutions of the G-Wagon. Each time Mendes’s expression changed: curiosity, surprise, shock, comprehension, hatred, venom.

  Both their cars, each heavy SUVs still moving out of control down the highway, headed towards a truck that had jack-knifed ahead in a cloud of smoke, screeching and clearing its way down the three lanes of traffic in uncontrolled motion. The G-Wagon and Land Rover hit the oncoming flatbed semi-trailer hard, both vehicles becoming airborne. Fox’s Land Rover flipped right over the G-Wagon, crashing upside down and spinning around on its roof down the freeway.

  Mendes’s G-Wagon was rolling over itself sideways, a violent tumble that flipped along like a washing-machine spin-cycle, bits of the car flying off with every impact with the asphalt. The 4WD got smaller and more crushed in on itself with every revolution, the black duco scraped back to silver metal.

  Fox’s world was a nauseating nightmare of motion. The Land Rover’s roof held the weight of the vehicle as it continued to spin around. Forward momentum continued to take him down the highway and he finally stopped only as the Land Rover hit up against the steep grass embankment. As the spinning slowed he had an upside-down view of the world as it flashed by outside the windows. He was suspended in place by his seatbelt, his hands on the passenger compartment ceiling.

  The G-Wagon came to rest on its side on the grass embankment just ahead of him. Fox had glimpses of it as his car continued spinning on its roof, each revolution a little slower than the last. He saw movement in the G-Wagon—Mendes, still alive.

  Then there came the screeching of dozens of car brakes and tyres as all the lanes of traffic came to a halt before the two smashed-to-shit SUVs and the jack-knifed truck that completely blocked off the highway.

  Fox’s Land Rover had almost stopped its revolutions now. From the corner of his eye he saw Mendes, climbing out of the G-Wagon. He stood there, facing Fox, seemingly unscathed.

  There were feet coming towards Fox. He turned his head to track them, to ID them—the three security contractors from the Toyota pick-up, guns aimed at him.

  Bullets sprayed his Land Rover as he made to reach for his seatbelt clasp—the top of his leg erupted with blood as he looked down … on the ceiling of the Land Rover just a couple of hand spans from his head—the M4. He picked it up as another salvo of AK-47 fire came his way and he squinted through the exploding debris around him and pointed the M4 out of the window. He squeezed off a three-round burst, took out the closest guy’s legs, reminding the others that the guy in this car was armed. They moved back as with the next revolution he let off three more bursts, and another gunman was down. The third man ran back to the cover of his car.

  Fox struggled to undo his seatbelt. The Land Rover was on fire now and Mendes was getting away. He released the belt and fell onto the ceiling of the car, pulling himself out of the driver’s window fast. He pulled his legs out as the Land Rover continued to slowly spin on its roof. He steadied himself to one knee, then squeezed off three rounds of the M4—the remaining security contractor’s chest erupted.

  Fox turned, picked out Mendes, now at the top of the embankment. He was looking back down at him, from fifty metres away. They traded stares. Fox had the look of a hunter. Mendes was disbelieving, that this guy was still after him, after all this.

  Mendes turned on a dime and ran.

  65

  ENTERING LAGOS CITY LIMITS, NIGERIA

  There were two vehicles on the tail of Nix’s Humvees, and up ahead they were racing fast towards a military roadblock where there were armoured vehicles. A few squads of men with assault rifles started firing hard.

  “Is it mission critical, chalk one?”

  The gunfire was constant. Bullets found homes against the metal armour of the Humvee, sounding like amplified hail on a tin roof. If he got out of this mission alive, Nix was never going to say a bad thing about a Humvee again.

  “You hear that, you Air Force son-of-a-bitch!” Nix yelled into the radio handset. “You tell me if it sounds critical!”

  There was a pause for a couple of seconds.

  “Negative, chalk one, I’m sorry. We’ve got five hours’ Reaper flight time remaining, with HVTs as the only designation for True Target. The road past these guys is clear—punch a hole through and proceed at haste. Do you copy, chalk one?”

  Nix weighed it up. Looked back out the rear window at the second Humvee. Top was manning the turret gun, pounding the shit out of the couple of MOPOL vehicles in pursuit of them.

  “Okay, we’re good, Creech. Chalk one out.”

  Nix passed the handset back to his RTO and yelled up to his turret-gunner:

  “Sam, blast a way through the roadblock with an AT-4!”

  His RTO passed the rocket launcher up into the hands of the turret-gunner.

  Seconds later a rocket shot ahead of their position, and the armoured vehicles were engulfed in flames.


  “Off-road! Go around them, punch it!” Nix ordered.

  Both Humvees were travelling at over a hundred kilometres per hour as they raced around the wreckage of the roadblock.

  66

  CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

  The aircrew were tense as they watched the Humvee convoy engage multiple technical targets. The colour image on the big monitor showed the massive explosion of a US-fired rocket, and the room full of Air Force cheered on their Army cousins as the Humvees broke through the roadblock and raced onwards, unopposed and unpursued.

  Ask any American where the front line in the war on terror was being fought and most would have said Iraq, some would have responded Afghanistan, while others would have answered the Middle East in general or anywhere where there was an enemy to be engaged. They’d all be right answers. Some would have replied wherever our armed forces are deployed, and they’d be right too. Not many, though, would have considered an Air Force base in Nevada to be one of the busiest front-line forces of the Department of Defense. But, every day of the week, for the operators of 432nd Wing, to step into their air-conditioned offices and plug into their flight control panels was no different than if they were flying combat sorties over Iraq.

  They were the first United States Air Force wing dedicated to unmanned aircraft systems. From here they piloted both the MQ-9 Reaper as well as MQ-1 Predator UAVs. They were the new breed of UAV operators. No more were they seen as remote pilots who provided aerial reconnaissance in airspace too dangerous for manned platforms. Their mission was force protection, fighter and close air support. They were an attack force, with the opportunity to quarterback the team on the ground to victory. Today, many ground troops didn’t want to deploy without UAV cover, able to scout ahead, reporting on enemy positions around the next bend in the road or over a hill, ready to launch a missile in fire support.