The ambush was over. And it was a draw.
A bloody, costly, and inconclusive one.
A Pyrrhic tie.
Head Hacking
The Stronghold - Zack and Baxter’s Room
Baxter came into the room out of breath, closed the door, pressed his back against it, and looked down at Zack. The latter was sitting on the bed, holding the forbidden team radio.
“The assault force,” Baxter said, “got their asses handed to them.”
“So did Triple Nickel.” He held up the radio.
“They never made it anywhere near the SF base.”
“I know. Did al-Sîf get killed?”
“Of course not.” Godane’ enforcer had a local reputation for unkillability – a well-deserved one. “He and the survivors are on their way back in.”
“ETA?”
“About thirty mikes, I think.” Baxter stood in silence for a few beats, his lips slightly parted. “This is madness.”
“I know. We’re all going to kill each other. And then the dead can eat us.”
Baxter exhaled and sat down on the opposite bed, facing Zack from a couple of feet away, in their usual conference configuration. “Maybe. But Godane’s definitely going to kill us.”
“Yeah,” Zack said tiredly.
“You know how he thinks.”
“Yes. He’ll find some way to blame us for this.”
Baxter silently pointed at the radio in Zack’s lap.
“Oh, yeah. You’re right. We actually are to blame this time. But, anyway, the verdict’s not in doubt. Nor the sentence.”
Baxter sighed. “You want to wait for the knock at the door?”
“I don’t think so. Thirty mikes until they’re back?”
“Give or take.” Baxter stood and moved back to the door. “Let’s do it.”
“What – right now?”
“If I was sure we’d be alive five minutes from now, I’d vote for then.”
Zack nodded, stood – and took a very deep breath.
* * *
The doors of the garage swung open only seconds before the shot-up gun truck, full of blood and casualties, rolled in and sputtered to a stop. Brendan and Elijah were both already there – with a big med ruck, multiple bags of plasma, and a folding combat stretcher.
But Kwon had already gotten a jab and a bag and a half of plasma into Todd; and both of them declined the stretcher, and not only because the team didn’t have the manpower to carry it. Everyone preferred being an ambulatory casualty – it was more dignified. Not bothering to get the garage shut up, the five of them limped and helped one another the mile and a bit back to camp.
As they walked, Jake hissed at Brendan. “How? How’d they know we’d be there?”
“Unknown,” Brendan said, wishing he could say something else.
“Well, we’d damn well better work it out, before we get blindsided again. Because it will probably be the last time.”
Once inside the wire, they made for the med shack, which Elijah had already prepped. One of their major taskings before the fall was to run medical clinics for the Warsangali – so their facilities were good. But Elijah couldn’t work on both casualties at once, so he directed Brendan and Jake in dealing with Kwon’s eye and hand, while he got to work on Todd. This involved finding the end of the artery, clamping it, getting the tourniquet off – and then prepping him for field surgery.
“You look like brick-hit shit,” Brendan said, leaning over Kwon’s half-slumped form in the light of the examination lamp. “I’m going to pull the bandage off slowly.” Kwon grunted, not moving his head. Brendan peeled the soiled field dressing away. “I’m just going to lift your eyelid and take a look, okay?”
“I don’t need the narration,” Kwon said. He was already popping Vicodin from a bottle Elijah gave him and washing it down with a liter bottle of water. He only had one working hand, so he had to put one down before picking up the other.
“Maybe take it easy on those,” Brendan said.
“Screw him,” Elijah said from the other side of the room, where he had Todd laid out on the examination table. “Take all you want.”
Kwon saluted him with the pill bottle.
Brendan smiled. “Yeah. I guess you’ve been brave enough for one day.”
But Jake reached in and took the pill bottle off him. “No he hasn’t. For all we know we’re going to have to fight again tonight.”
Kwon snorted. “Well, we always know who Dad is in this family.”
It didn’t need pointing out that Brendan was Mom. “Jesus,” he said as he got Kwon’s eyelid peeled back. “You’ve got wood splinters stabbing into your eye.”
“It’s a big tree,” Kwon singsonged, taking another swig of water. “You’ll be fine.” He tried to steal the pill bottle back from Jake but the old man was too quick for him.
“Hey, you’re here, aren’t you?” Todd said from flat on his back. “I could always put you back under the tree.” Elijah had Todd’s shirt off, had finished cleaning around the wound, and was now swabbing what seemed like half his body with Betadine.
Leaning in with a small flashlight, Brendan said, “Good news. None of the splinters are in your pupil or iris. You just might retain use of this eye.”
Jake looked in, grimaced, and handed Kwon another Vicodin.
* * *
Baxter simply marched out into the hallway like he owned it. As he passed the guard outside, he tossed over his shoulder three words in Somali, which translated as: “You coming?”
“Waa maxay?”
Baxter stopped and turned. “Do you want to keep the Emir waiting?”
The guard was big for a Somali. But he doubled up when Zack swung the bed leg into his kidney from behind. He was neither down nor out, though, and spun to face the attack while bringing his AK up.
But Baxter was tall too, a corn-fed all-American, and his left hand jerked the guard’s head back, while his right brought his Gerber multitool in, blade out, and across the exposed throat. The subsequent struggle was intimate, bloody, and vicious. It was like nothing the young analyst had ever done, but it was over in a few seconds.
Baxter pivoted and dragged the body back into the room, letting it fall to the floor. He wiped his bloody multitool on the dead man’s shirt, then closed it up and regarded his handiwork for one second. He’d actually considered using the saw blade. But the last thing he wanted to do was turn into these head-hackers.
Even after the end of the world, the care of every man’s soul was his own.
Zack handed him one of the two backpacks that contained all their worldly possessions. There wasn’t much. The radio accounted for much of the weight. Zack nodded, Baxter nodded, and they went out the door and closed it behind them.
They got moving through the underground passages – slow and upright, like they still owned the place. It was the middle of the night, so they weren’t likely to encounter too many people. But if they did, the last thing they wanted was to look like fugitives. And with the night’s devastated patrol still out, there was likely to be more activity than usual, especially as the survivors and wounded rolled back in.
Within a few minutes they had reached ground level and emerged into the black and sprawling courtyard. At this point they went covert, moving around behind buildings and piles of crap, maneuvering toward the front gate. They found a good spot to hide less than twenty meters from it and hunkered down.
And they waited. But every second took its toll.
As long as they were on this side of the wall, their lives were forfeit.
Gone Girl
Camp Price - Med Shack
When Jake and Brendan returned together to the med shack, Elijah was already suturing up the incision on Todd’s arm. He’d sewn the artery back up, unclamped it, and verified that it was flowing properly and not bleeding internally. It was good service, particularly for amateur vascular surgery. But the six-month Special Operations Combat Medic Course was the best in the world, and
was only the first half of the initial year-long training 18 Deltas received. And that year was only the beginning of a lifetime of ongoing training. Practicing out in the bush, guys like Elijah basically turned into country doctors.
Kwon was still sitting and waiting, looking blissed out on Vicodin.
The two patients and one medic all looked up when the two detachment leaders rolled back in. Jake had refitted and rearmed, and Brendan had kitted up. Both were wired in, keyed up, and loaded for bear. The others knew exactly where they were going: to get their girl.
“No response to radio hails?” Elijah asked, as he tied off his sutures.
Brendan shook his head no.
“Give me twenty minutes,” Elijah said. “I can at least man the TOC for you. And I can get the Shadow up again for ISR.”
“No,” Jake said. “You’ve got to get in a tower with a Stinger – now.”
Brendan agreed. “As soon as Godane learns his attempt to take the base has failed, his next impulse has got to be to destroy it.” He nodded at the two wounded. “One of these two can assist, the other can man the TOC.”
Both Kwon and Todd made noises about wrapping up their injuries and coming on the QRF for Kate. Brendan ordered them to stay, then Jake manhandled them. Todd tried to get up off the table before his surgical thread was tied off and Kwon was wrapping gauze around his face, to throw himself one-eyed back into the fight.
Finally Brendan and Jake simply made a run for it.
The wounded were too slow to keep up.
* * *
The night pressing in around them was evil, and Zack felt a kind of panicked claustrophobia. Like he had to get out of that shrinking Islamist fortress, or he was going to suffocate, drown. The returning assault force was steadfastly not returning. And those huge gates stayed resolutely closed. Zack noticed Baxter looking up toward the SE guard tower. If he’d dared speak, he would have said something like, “No, no, no, no, no…”
Finally Baxter stuck his mouth up to Zack’s ear and whispered those usually fateful words: “I’ll be right back.”
Zack tried to physically latch on to him, but failed. In seconds, Baxter had disappeared into the darkness. Zack cursed silently. They were already in terrible peril, without another adventure like this. His eyes bored a hole in the night, staring up at that tower. He knew there would be at least one guard in it. Please, God, don’t let there be two…
He couldn’t make out anything up there. It was in deep shadow.
He knew Baxter had the code to the combination lock.
And he had his multitool. But that was it.
Eyes wide, staring, willing something to resolve, finally Zack saw motion, lighter black on dark black. It was the guard standing up – and then tumbling over backward. There was no sound, at least not where Zack was. But if he could see it, others might have as well. He cast his gaze frantically but fruitlessly around the nearly pitch-black courtyard.
And then he practically jumped out of his skin as he heard voices speaking in Somali, close enough that he could also hear their footfalls. Men were running to the gate.
And then he heard engine noise approaching. And at long last the giant gates started to swing open, to the accompaniment of the grunts of men pulling on the ropes. The lead truck rolled in, lights out. It was moving fast for being inside the walls. And Zack had no idea how many, or how few, were going to be behind it. And when they were all in, those gates were going to close.
Probably forever, as far as Zack and Baxter were concerned.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! They had finally got their chance – and fucking Baxter wasn’t here for it. Zack braced himself. He was going to have to go on his own. But could he? Could he leave Baxter, after all this time?
As he asked himself this, he realized he had absolutely no idea.
All he knew was he was frozen, rooted to his spot, mindlessly counting vehicles as they rolled in: three, four, five…
And then a looming figure resolved out of the darkness to his side. For exactly one second, Zack thought the jig was up. But it was Baxter. And he carried a big boxy case under one arm. It was the GCS – the Predator Ground Control Station. Without which, Godane was grounded, for good.
Zack flashed back to their long-ago escape from that burning safehouse in Hargeisa, with the legions of the dead and the militias descending on them from all sides – when Baxter, even younger and less experienced, had raced back into the burning structure to retrieve that same GCS.
This was turning into a real habit with him. Maybe he was just attached to it.
Zack’s reverie burst when he realized the young man was trying to get him to take the bulky case. He did so. Baxter reached into his pocket, pulled out his lucky grenade, kissed it, pulled the pin – and gave it a huge baseball throw way off into the far corner of the courtyard.
More time passed.
The last vehicle in the convoy rolled inside.
The gates started swinging closed.
Zack stood up, almost involuntarily. Something had caught his eye in the last truck. Even in the low light, he instantly recognized the big form of al-Sîf driving. But sitting in back was a smaller, very differently shaped form, wearing a sleek black t-shirt, hands bound behind the back.
It was a female. And she was white.
The grenade went up, flashing and crumping in the black and quiet night, about as far away as you could get and still be inside the Stronghold.
Shouts went up, men started running – and every eye went to that spot.
Baxter grabbed Zack by the arm and bodily hauled him forward. Crouching, heads low, seizing the instant of distraction, they raced out through the six-foot gap in the gates and were quickly swallowed up by the night.
They were free.
* * *
Jake and Brendan had topped the tank, thrown in a few more cases of belted ammo for the machine guns, and were just putting their asses in the front seats of the other gun truck, the one that hadn’t been shot up – when both their radios went.
“Bren, Jake, Eli.”
“Go ahead,” Brendan said into his chin mic.
“Stand down, guys. Repeat – stand down.”
Jake clicked on. “What? Why?”
“They’ve got her. Godane and al-Sîf. They’ve got Kate.”
When the two leaders got back to the TOC, Zack and Baxter weren’t on the radio channel anymore. But Elijah reported on what they’d told him, and what they had seen. He gave them both a second to absorb that.
“One other thing. They want to know if they can get a ride.”
Brendan shook his head.
Jake kicked something solid, hard.
Talisman
Nugaal District of Somalia
Jake and Brendan rode in silence. Jake drove, Brendan rode. It was mom and dad again, and the marriage was under strain.
Both parents, or rather both team leaders, were on chauffeur duty tonight because there was no one else to do it. Elijah was on double duties in camp, both manning the radio in the TOC and piloting the Shadow – and his drone surveillance had to monitor the huge incoming herd, look for other ones, and watch for follow-on ground attacks from al-Shabaab.
Kwon and Todd were both injured, and had both just started recovering – if there was even going to be time for recovery. Someone had to be on anti-air duties at all times, manning the Stingers and watching for the return of Godane’s Predator – which would almost certainly presage incoming Hellfire missiles and the destruction of the camp, and probably only by a few seconds. That someone was Kwon. He insisted he could operate the shoulder-fired missiles with his off hand and his off eye.
Todd had immediately gone back to work repairing their shot-up and damaged gun truck. It still ran, but you wouldn’t want to take it out for a long drive in the middle of nowhere. And everywhere was the middle of nowhere now. Having only one reliable vehicle, for any length of time, was unacceptable.
There was no one left but Jake and Brendan. And t
hey went out on this errand together because no one ever went anywhere alone. Everything in SF worked on the buddy system.
Brendan spared a look across at Jake. He was driving with NVGs, lights off. And there was some serious atmosphere building up in there – despite the open air. The un-damaged gun truck was also the roofless and doorless one. On the upside, they still had a good couple of hours of darkness left. They’d already driven down off the mountain, out of the forest, then south out of the Sanaag region, crossing two others on their way into Mudug.
Zack and Baxter didn’t, it turned out, have any kind of GPS device. So they’d had to try to organize a pick-up point based on maps and terrain features. It wouldn’t be far over the border into Mudug. The two escapees from the Stronghold were moving fast on foot, putting as much distance as possible between them and Godane.
Brendan looked across again to Jake. He had some things to say to his team sergeant. Jake’s perfectly planned ambush had ended far from perfectly – and they had all gotten singed badly, flying way too close to the flame. Even so, it could have ended up worse than it did – much worse.
Brendan cleared his throat and finally said, “That was too fucking close, Jake. We can’t keep playing this way. We’re going to crap out.”
Instead of responding to this, Jake just pointed and said, “There.”
It was four very quick flashes of white light, up ahead and in the woods beside the road. Jake slowed, wrestled two wheels onto the shoulder, and rolled to a stop. Two dark figures darted from the treeline and climbed in back. Jake put it back in gear, turned them around by rumbling over both shoulders, and accelerated north again.
The showdown between the two team leaders would have to wait.
* * *
But it didn’t have to wait long.
Minutes after their return, everyone was gathered in the team room again as the sun cracked the horizon – everyone except Elijah, who was still on round-the-clock drone duty. He was alone in the TOC now, putting down liters of their hoarded supplies of energy drinks, long a staple of deployments. At this point, they were down to sugar-free pomegranate-and-blueberry Pit Bull, everyone’s least favorite. But Elijah hadn’t gotten his head down in so long that anything with outrageous levels of caffeine was like wine from water.
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