The Fifth Battalion

by Michael Priv

  “Linda, I love you in any underwear or a sweat suit. Actually, come to think of it, you know what would look great? Just a sweat shirt and no pants or underwear, let’s say, or… no shirt either and…”

  “Shut up! And of course they had to watch me change! No class, no decency! I had to flash my bare butt to complete strangers!” “ Bastards! You want me to kill them for you?” She let out an angry snort. “Just saying, hon. I will get you out of there tomorrow, I promise.” Not sure if my voice betrayed my feelings. I could only guess how terrified she was after all her adventures.

  “Do what you have to do, Picky. I trust you,” she replied softly, obviously feeling better after our little talk. So powerful. So composed. When did she get to be that way? She’d always been that way, I realized. Whenever she needed to be strong, she always was. As with my respect and admiration for Linda, my resolve was growing and congealing within me into an unstoppable juggernaut of power. Deep in my heart, I knew we couldn’t lose. We would prevail.

  Meanwhile, t hey wouldn’t treat her badly. They probably planned to kill us both tomorrow to cover their tracks, but there was absolutely no reason to mistreat her now.

  I ate something, paid with the dead FBI agent’s credit card to lead on the cops and threw Burk’s valet in the trash. There cannever be enough red herringswas my deep conviction. Special Ops could track me through the phone ’s GPS or a homing device they could have installed, so hiding from them was not my priority. I was worried about the cops and the FBI. I had a pretty complex and iffy plan to execute, which involved luring the Marines into the woods and singlehandedly killing the entire team. That’s what I call “complex” and “iffy.” Not just “iffy”—more like “crazy.” Didn’t want the cops to crash the party.

  Eugene called me with the first location. It was about a mile and a half off Rio Nido Road by Guerneville, off 116, Route 1 North. It was a three-room cabin deep in the woods, currently vacant. The security was going to be disabled and the door unlocked for me by 3:00 a.m. The front door was facing south. Four of his guys were going to be fanned out about fifty yards north of the back door. The house was some seventy-five miles north of my current location in San Francisco. Four in the back and nobody in front? Yeah, right. There must have been the fifth Russian up in front which he wasn’t telling me about.

  Eugene did not yet have the second position ready. I used the cell phone they ’d knifed to the wall in my apartment to call Siryoumoron. He sounded happy enough to hear from me, having seemingly forgotten our recent exchange, where I promised to gut his entire team. Lying son of a bitch.

  “Norman! How are you doing?”

  “ Very good. You? Still alive I hear?”

  “So far so good. Got the stick yet?”

  “Not yet, man. Driving to pick it up right now. You got the money?”

  “Affirmative that. Got it right here,” he replied significantly and then added after a pause, “Stay in touch.”

  Yeah,sure Stretching out on my hotel bed felt good, and my thoughts raced along the usual track. Linda was safe for now—my brave girl. My mind immediately went to Yvette—I remembered her alive and happy, jumping around on my shoulder, cooing into my ear, or snoozing on my finger comfortably. Death. The most prominent feature of an immortal’s mental landscape is the death of loved ones. And there were plenty of those deaths. And the loved ones were not necessarily parents or close friends, or even wives or children, although they could well be, but a loss of a bird in this case really touched the nerve. My little bird loved me with all her brave little heart. Murdered by a psycho in cold blood just to upset me.

  And Linda! I bolted upright on my bed, thinking. How is my dear girldoing? My insides were aching from worries. I was also dead tired . Are the Russians just going to release her when we kill the Marines? Very unlikely. They may want to cleanup any loose ends

  and also pocket allthe money. Time check: 12:48 a.m. I should get going to Guerneville. But I wanted to see the files on the flash drive first, just in case they offered any vital insights into the situation—or simply explained why the hell US military would harbor such unhealthy feelings toward us.

  The hotel’s business center was already closed. Turned out they closed at nine. “ I need to use one of your counter computers. It’s an emergency,” I said to the lethargic young man at the front counter downstairs. According to his tag, his name was Brad.

  “Sorry, sir,” he replied indifferently. “Not allowed.”

  “What do you mean by that exactly, Brad? That I can’t use this computer right here?” I asked, thinking that I may have to repeat my request while poking the lazy bum with my gun.

  “Oh, you want exactly? Exactly, that means a Franklin,” he stated lazily. Lethargic or not, he knew his Founding Fathers. “I’ll give you a Jackson.” I handed the bastard a twenty, which he ignored.

  “Four Jacksons or come back tomorrow. We open at nine,” he said.

  “Two Jacksons and I promise not to kill you,” I retorted irritably, showing him the butt of my gun tucked in my belt. “ Okay, two Jacksons is perfect, sir, just wonderful. Thank you very much!” the clerk finally woke up and was now eyeing me with fake admiration. Where is the work ethic with these people, I ask you? He let me behind the counter to one of the empty stations.

  The flash drive contained only two files: a JPEG image and a WORD doc. The JPEG picture turned out to be a tourist poster of gently rolling hills covered with lush trees pummeled by wind and rain—not helpful. Possibly the file would explain what that was about.

  The doc file was some text that looked like a poem or something—in some language I’d never seen in my life. Although written in English letters, it had way too many vowels in a row and some of the letters had slashes across them, unlike anything I’d ever seen. Obviously, I was only going to get clues from these files— maybe, at best, but not the answers. The files could have been key to my current predicament but were disappointing to say the least. I checked for any hidden files on the flash and hidden messages within the files but found nothing.

  “Good night, sir.”

  “Brad, I want you to be a better employee and a more honest person in the future. Can you improve on that?” “ Definitely! Thank you, sir, come back soon!”

  Fake smile, empty eyes. Hopeless.

  With the few belongings and weapons, I left the building through the back loading-dock door. 1:05 a.m. A walk around the place confirmed the absence of visual surveillance. The military could have been tracking the cell phone from half-way across the globe or from space. No point trying to outsmart that kind of capability. Fine, bring it on.

  The blue Ford Taurus I stole had an almost full tank of gas. The general aroma of decay, pizza leftovers and empty beer cans created a rather dubious ambience in the car. The air freshener on the rearview mirror was failing miserably. I was not curious about the owner, although I felt sorry for stealing his Ford. Some dumb redneck from the Central Valley, I decided, on a gawking trip to San Francisco, a Johnny Cash freak. I jabbed the radio on and was greeted by a friendly female voice announcing Johannes Brahms’s Opus 120 followed by something so excruciatingly Classical that I hurriedly turned it off. So much for the Johnny Cash freak, a dumb redneck from the Central Valley. You never know.

  Traveling north across the Golden Gate Bridge and up 101 North, a pleasant drive, I stopped at Jason’s near San Rafael for some coffee and a sandwich. I also wanted to make a stop to confirm my acquisition of the flash drive—to make Siryoumoron happy. We aim to please.

  I called him after my coffee and a sandwich, introducing him to my new location. “Hey, jug head, I got the thumb drive.” “Don’t call me a ‘jug head.’”

  “Okay, Siryoumoron, I won’t call you a jug head. You want the stick or not?”

  “Yes, I do. Let’s meet, I got the money.” “Nah , too tired. I’m going to hole up for the night. I got a summer house out in the woods. Will call you first thing tomorrow morning.”

  �
��Fine. See you tomorrow.” Could I be wrong? Were they not tracking me? No way. My calculations were correct. They were tracking me and most likely following at a distance, and not too great a distance, either, a mile, max. They needed control; they had to keep their options open. Now that they knew I had the stick, they’d attack at their convenience— instead of waiting for me to organize defenses or skip town altogether.

  As I was taught once at a counter-espionage school a very long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, military operations could always be expected to follow the simplest plan, commonly referred to “as the water flows,” the easiest way possible, the path of the least resistance. The path of the least resistance, the easiest time and place for the op, was later tonight at my summer house out in the woods. I made that clear and sure hoped they reached that same conclusion. The road blocks along the way, or open attacks in the woods resulting in a shootout, would require much more agile planning and difficult execution and possible collateral damage to contend with. That course of action would also most likely bring them in contact with police and the FBI. Not sure they really wanted that under the circumstances. I did not want them to attack me prematurely or wait till tomorrow. That is why I gave them a simple “as the water flows” plan of action. I sure hoped they appreciated my plan.

  16 Route 1 North, then 116 eventually brought me to Rio Nido Road going north. I found the dirt turnoff into the woods and navigated in the dark through the bumps. Fords are great for that. What if I were driving a Jaguar? I shuddered. It was raining lightly, too. Rather adverse driving conditions all around. There was nobody following me. Either they were that good or there was, in fact, nobody following me, which would be a disaster. I wanted them here. I’d bought a trap for them for two million dollars that I didn’t even have.

  The black shape of the house loomed ahead. I parked right in front of it. Marines were close by, but they would need some time to verify my location, review satellite pictures of the layout, work out at least a rudimentary plan of attack, gear up and then arrive. I decided I had about an hour before the show started which was a lot more than I needed. No rush.

  Time check—2:45 a.m. With my bag in hand, I walked through the puddles to the front door, not worrying about leaving tracks. Tracks are good; they’d expect to see tracks. The flashlight picked out elements of terrain under my feet—a clump of grass, a piece of firewood, an old concrete walkway. There was a brick parapet porch wall to the left of the door, which could be used as a somewhat hardened firing position. The Marines were sure to notice it too. No other tracks. Were the Russians here?

  The front door was slightly ajar. Yes, the Russians were already here. They’d disabled the alarm and opened the door. Since the Russians obviously had not walked here, they must have approached from the back and through the house. The door creaked when I opened it wider. A creaking door! Good.

  The house smelled deserted. Probably nobody wanted to rent it that far out in the woods during the rainy season. Pity. A couple could have a nice winter vacation here—kind of like a ski vacation minus the snow and the skiing, which would hone it down to sex and beer— the skiing vacation of the best kind. The rooms were large, paneled, a living room with a huge fireplace—a fun place to spend a couple of weeks in the woods with Linda.

  I changed clothes in the dark, took out my commando knife the psychos used to kill Yvette, then my guns and the two frags, packed my new clothes into the backpack and stashed it in the stolen car. Back in the house, I rigged a simple booby trap with one of the grenades and some string in the furthest bedroom, using my cell phone as the bait.

  Marines are adept at spotting and disarming—or simply avoiding—booby traps. Out in a jungle, or in the Afghan mountains jump up and down all you wanted you’d never get a Marine to pick up an unknown object, move anything or step sideways and trip any wires. The problem with these particular Marines was arrogance. I was counting on them to commit the error of all errors, to succumb to the ancient curse that had wiped out armies and destroyed entire civilizations—underestimating the opponent. Thus, violating rule number two of hostile engagement— never underestimate your

  opponent. It has always been my deep conviction that it was arrogance that killed the cat. Having set up the booby trap, I went out in search of a good position for myself. They had a sniper, a good one. I’d seen him in action. If I had a sniper, I’d deploy him, of course, but where? In front of the entrance, higher up on a tree, ideally within a hundred feet from the front door. Surveying the layout as best I could in the dark, I found only two good positions for a sniper. There were only two large trees in front within a hundred to hundred fifty feet. One of them had a large propane tank set up right under it. I would position my sniper on the other tree, far enough from the propane tank. The tree was well to the left of the entrance—seventy-five to a hundred feet away. Difficult as it was to judge distance in the darkness, I had the position pretty much figured out in my mind.

  The Special Ops must have a car or several cars. Where would they park them? An important question because they’d most likely leave one man, let’s call him Wheels, to guard the cars and insure a quick getaway if needed. Wheels could also double as the back spotter and the last containment line. To be effective at all, Wheels would have to be positioned close enough to the house to see what was happening. It would make a lot less sense to park the cars half a mile away in the bushes. If I had my sniper up on the tree about a hundred feet to the left of the entrance door, I’d put my backlines spotter, Wheels, in front of the door, possibly a bit to the right, at most thirty or forty feet. I marked in my mind the position of the parked car, or cars, and Wheels holed up behind one of them.

  Now, where would I be coming from? I had no silencer, but I had a knife. To use it effectively I would have to be located close behind their back containment line, Wheels, with no threat from my back.

  According to Eugene, they had four men here. That meant at least five. They’d probably have one in front I didn’t know about, a sniper. If Eugene wanted his money, it wouldn’t make any sense to cover the back and leave the front wide open for me to take off with the money. But that was not important right now. The Russians were not my enemies in this engagement; they understandably wanted to keep an eye on the money.

  With the cars parked and Wheels located as I expected, my best position turned out to be good forty feet further away from the house in a clump of dense low bushes. I’d have to cover some forty feet of open space without alerting Wheels. Could be done. That was why God created diversions. Wheels would have to be thoroughly distracted and then I’d take him out. I’d have to cover some hundred feet to the probable sniper’s position up the tree. How? Very quietly. The rest of the plan was rather vague in my head, somewhere between “shoot them up” and “kill them all.” I did not have to worry about any of the Marines escaping through the woods out back;

  Eugene ’s people were fanned out there. Well, grunts,this is goingto hurt.I promised Siryoumoron to kill him last. I also wanted to find

  out which one of these animals killed my Yvette and make sure that

  bastard was offered a few minutes to reflect on the eternal conflict

  between Good and Evil before he died.

  I smeared my face and hands with shoe polish and hid in the clump of bushes. Their infrared scanners didn’t concern me. The arrogant hoods were too full of themselves to bother scanning that far out in the woods.

  Nothing was moving. I was well-concealed in the bushes, cold and wet. Perfect. Was I wrong? Were the Marines on their way? Or were they sleeping peacefully in warm beds in San Francisco while I was freezing my ass off in the wet bushes? Finally, with a great deal of relief, I saw two shadows move toward the house more or less noiselessly. Standard Marine posture with the gun glued to their faces, arms held high—not always the best stance, if you asked me, as it limited the field of vision, especially at night. The fact they used the scopes at all indicated the scopes were infra-red. I had
nothing to counter that. No matter. The comforting surge of adrenalin and my incredible prowess in martial and military arts would see me through. You don’tgetto be trillions of years old without some

  incredibleacumen. Sure, you do.

  Time check—3:55 a.m.

  No cars. I did not like that. The deployment seemed different, not as I expected. I had no silenced weapons and no night vision equipment. The op had to go as planned, or I would fry here and so would the Russians in the back.

  Two Marines slipped behind the house. Two more black shapes moved smoothly toward the house through the woods and took position right out front, covering the windows and the front door. I heard cars moving slowly through the woods with their headlights off—two vehicles, both dark, a sedan and an SUV. They parked right where I thought they would. Things were going as planned after all. I felt relief.

  From my position in the bushes I could not see exactly how many more Marines got out, but it looked like they had a total of at least eight. I heard a muffled sound far to my left. That must be the sniper taking his position—the one who murdered the two FBI men, agents Burk and Silezny. The rain stopped; there was not a movement in the air. Total stillness, wet darkness, and silence. The silence was not going to last much longer. Things around here were about to get very loud indeed.

  Then, barely audible at this distance, I heard the front door creak. The front attack unit entered the house, homing in on their cell phone. The diversion I was waiting for was a grenade explosion. Would they spot the booby trap in the dark? I hoped not, even with the night vision capability. The grenade blast, muffled by the house walls, ripped through the wilderness, loud and startling, even for me.

  I could barely make out Wheels talking urgently into his earpiece by the sedan, trying to get the scoop on the grenade explosion. He was facing the house. I ran up to him from behind, reached over his shoulder, clapping his mouth while forcing the commando knife— compliments of the Marines—through the base of his neck. The point slid in like into butter. Wheels went down as if his legs were suddenly chopped off. He never saw what hit him and never uttered a sound. Did I feel sorry for this life that I so suddenly ended? Not particularly, although things being equal, I’d rather had a drink with him than killed him.