Jabo was the primary target. His two RF men had been in the way, like the unlucky border patrol officers had been near Big Bend, at the check point. Thinking of them Jabo felt his rage and revenge, amplified by their needless sacrifice. He'd given them a safe role, a purely protective mission watching an area of the building he assumed would not come into play. They should have been driving home, laughing and talking about how they'd helped the great Jabo Bowie, at his present day Alamo.
“Light him up,” Jabo called into the phone, still uneasy with the flimsy earphone setup his wife had rigged from her phone, a tiny earbud that felt like it was going to fall out at any second, lacking the ear loop his normal ear speakers would have. It let him keep the phone in his pocket as he jogged as fast as his wounded leg would let him, racing from the front of their car across the narrow alley that separated it from the next building, fifty feet away, moving out as soon as they started shooting, all explosive rounds that crackled across a wide arena, still absolutely dark, bathed in starlight and a half moon's pale reflection – nothing more.
The electricians, his only men now and relishing their new role as snipers, fired off a full clip of explosive rounds around the top of the hill, but there was little chance the sniper had stayed there, so they walked them in a random pattern down the side closest to them, emptying the clip in ten seconds. The boom and bright muzzle flashes from their building made them stand out, but the police were still far away with nothing in their arsenal that could reach them from the closest roadblock. They were forced to watch then talk about how they'd round them up or neutralize them, not sure if they were good guys or bad.
After getting to the other building, he waved back to Cathy who was staying low behind the shield the hood and engine – where she'd shoot back if he needed an extra distraction. She nodded, getting into the mood he'd insisted she take on, serious and completely under his control, no cowboy action, blazing away without being told to fire by him, staying low and safe. He'd emphasized he was going to be in her line of fire and with very little cover. A long spray from her might hit him instead of the sniper.
He hoped he'd put the selector back on single shot, wished he could call her, but Albert had the phone that linked them up, sitting in the driver's seat, ready to drive out as Cathy hopped inside, getting the hell out of there if the sniper flanked their position, as Jabo intended on doing to him. The click then hum of a very powerful loudspeaker being turned on rang out over the valley.
“This is the Texas Department of Public Safety SWAT team,” Jabo had worked his way to the end of the other building closest to the low hill, five hundred meters away, ready to look for the best path for his next run to a low row of bushes lining the outer edge of the parking lot. “Cease fire, anyone shooting from this time on will be considered a hostile and shot.” The loud speaker echoed across the valley like the voice of God.
“Well, they don't fuck around.” Jabo smiled, wondering how the sniper was going to respond to that.
“I don't like it, sitting here, waiting, we should go, at least circle the area, now that SWAT's here we could provide a second set of eyes.” pleaded the younger, Corporal Ball, antsy from sitting while they heard the distant shooting and explosions lighting up the horizon nearby, which they didn't know was the result of their sniper team's last barrage. Not knowing made it worse. Were they wining or losing? Now the powerful loudspeaker verified the police were closing in, ready to shut their battle down.
“We wait,” his father glared at him, annoyed but feeling the same thing his son was. He wanted to help out, give Jabo an edge he might need. But his orders had been perfectly clear, crystal, no movement unless called on, keep Cathy's civilian helicopter out of the fight. Laying low was more important now they'd successfully inserted their men and were waiting, innocently, on the ground, far enough away he could fire up and slink off, with no one spotting them – close enough to hear the recent blast from the cops to cease all firing. But the Balls don't work that way.
Corporal Ball watched his father reach up and turn on the main power bus, which lit up the other lights around the cockpit, “Dad?”
“Checklist, hurry, stealth, if this bird is capable of anything close to that.”
“Yes sir!”
All they had were side arms, the old .45 Sergeant Ball had carried in the four conflicts, starting with an invasion of a friendly island down south, never using it as he flew. It was for protection if he was shot down, but it's heavy round and the two boxes of extra bullets that both kept close – each man always had one in each opposite bulky side pocket in his fatigue pants – insured they'd be able to keep firing for as long as the fifty rounds lasted. There's nothing as useless as an empty gun. It insured they could add some firepower to the fight as they circled overhead and fuck the officers, even Jabo. Sgt. Ball had just as much of a family reputation to uphold as Bowie. Ball was a family name that required courage, just to make it through elementary school and had turned him into a man in Middle school and a soldier soon after.
Vladimir was considering retreat after the barrage of explosive rounds he'd thought were mortars until their smaller sized explosions combined with the distant flare and echoing report of the far away Barrett rifle clarified what was happening. It was the preferred long shot weapon of the Americans which they'd been using to harass him from a distance that precluded any kind of accuracy. This fusillade was more of the same, with a bit more drama. It wasn't aimed at directly at him, meant to keep his head down. It succeeded, but now it had stopped, a full clip, maybe their last. Emerging, like generations of soldiers after a barrage, he returned to scanning the lower ground below him, hoping the attack was meant to hide one particular person's movements, that it meant Jabo was coming his way.
Earlier, he'd been fooled a second time, infuriating him, shooting at an obviously dead body that his powerful starlight scope had made easy to hit. The active optics were necessary this time because of the night and very low light at the distance, about four hundred yards, since the parking lot and street lights in the area were still not working, off when the local high power electric supply had been shut down. The scope was an example of the superb electronics that made night into day, American, the latest generation. Russian optics were nearly as good, but not as reliable, not even close. He was certain he could recognize a Jabo's face at over two hundred meters, in the absolute dark – the excellent sniper rifle and its scope a 'gift' from the Americans he'd killed in the Hummer behind the building, not long after he'd driven up.
He'd pored over the body he'd shot as it moved over the edge of the data center, then fell into a heap at the bottom. He'd thought he was the one who'd blown his head off, then he saw the large hole torn in his side, what he'd aimed at, the head invisible when he'd shot. A decoy! This man was good and courageous to do the same thing twice with someone like Vladimir. He wouldn't be fooled again. His next shot would hit its target then he'd fade into the night, because with the police swarming the area things were getting very hot.
His exfil plan was proving right and he was already halfway out. It required a long walk over the low hills that ran along the East side of the valley filled with the squat concrete buildings, arranged in neat rows, all the same size. It had reminded him of the boxy Stalinist Era apartments thrown up for years after the devastating Great War in his country. Built as a reward for their service, they housed the victorious soldiers or their survivors. It was payment for their fathers sacrificing their lives – to save the country, while it's leaders and of course, their families, survived in near luxury, far behind the fluid front lines.
Where was he, the man on the roof, who'd taken on Grigor and his men, killing them all, like a hunter shooting game? He hoped it was the man called Jabo, what his sources had told him was grandson of the people he'd killed in West Texas. He was sure this was the same man efficiently killing everyone who opposed him, the man he hoped was coming for him. Vladimir's only worry was the men with their huge caliber Bar
rett. They might spot him with thermal sights, more useful than his starlight scope at the extreme range they were shooting, better able to pick out a 'hot' body against the cooling dirt and plant life covering his small hill even at the range of one and a half kilometers. It would let them take a few shots at his crouched over body if he had to hurry up the low rise behind him, exposed for a few hundred meters, without cover, if he decided to disappear and escape.
But not yet, there was more fighting to do, he wanted another 'scalp', as these primitive Americans called it, savages with nuclear bombs and women that walked around naked, like the bleached blond hussies of his own country. He should have been born a few centuries earlier, done the Czar's dirty work, as he did the current Czar's bidding, on occasion. Putin was a nasty man who lived for his own pleasure, which was turning him slowly toward the sort of perversion Vladimir lived for.
Back in those times Vladimir could have stocked his dacha with local peasant girls, purchased from willing parents eking out a living around his estate, eager to please their landowner. For peasants, children are cheap to make, expensive to raise and thus ideal as bargaining chips. He could have lived like a lord with no one to bother him, an idyllic life and one he wanted to create soon.
He'd returned reluctantly, not taking his last flight to Moscow. He'd been assured he could have anything he wanted by the men running LazaRuss. They'd sent him back to clean up what Grigor had clearly failed to do, dying on the top of the roof while Vladimir ruthlessly took out the two soldiers guarding the back. He'd wanted to fix his mistake as well, in this hot, cactus covered land, Texas. It was a point of pride, the sole positive emotion he could feel without difficulty.
“Jabo?” he'd answered his phone just before he'd steeled himself to make the hardest move, completely in the open, the last bit of exposure. He was going to work South and East to come up behind the small rise in front of him, flanking Vladimir, coming up in his six. He hoped the sniper would be looking for him in the direction he'd last seen him, directly West, near the data center.
“Ball, is that you in helicopter I see? Damn!” he saw the helicopter rock slightly, telling him it was. “Shit, are you North of the data center? There's cops all around you. You're going to get blown!”
“Yep, flight plan takes us right over this area, my mistake. The controllers are yelling at me like mad but I told them I had this logged this as a student check ride, night cross country and I'm acting stupid.”
“Can you pick me up?”
“Yep, not many cars down there, and Robby spotted your wife's Lexus parked behind that building – broken windshield, is she okay?” Jabo muttered she was, still annoyed the Sargent had ignored his standing order. “ Is our man on that small rise East of the data center?”
“Roger that, since you're here, I want to...”
They had rendezvoused behind the building where Cathy sat her post, holding the fully automatic AR15 on her lap, resigned to being cut out of the new plan Jabo had made up as her father's helicopter dropped down then took off a minute later, an apparent touch and go, instead of a passenger pick up. Sargent Ball resumed, taking the helicopter higher than before, apologizing to the controllers for the delay, “thought I had time to get in a quick night landing, so the boy will pass his check ride, sorry, sorry.”
The controller told him to stop loitering around a potential fire fight, informing him he was on notice of losing his license unless he left the area quickly, directly West, back to the San Marcos airport to have a discussion about his flying and out of the line of fire. What the controller didn't know was Ball had brought a IFF unit with an identity spoofing another helicopter in the FAA's database, something they'd realize soon enough, since that helicopter was recently grounded soon to be decommisioned, to be used for parts – a bit of information Sargent Ball knew from being in the helicopter repair trade. After he disappeared from their screens one last time, he was going to pop up with a new, correct transponder signal a few miles away – the Bateman Corporation bird once again.
“That sort of was the way I wanted to go, right back over the LazaRuss building,” Jabo grinned, listening on the headset the younger Ball had set on his head after he'd climbed inside.
Ball checked his personal GPS unit still clamped to the dash, using it to fly his bird as Jabo worked on the GPS unit strapped to his chest. He loaded the new location where he needed to land, short of the small rise where he hoped the sniper was still waiting to get one last shot at him. It was crazy to trust the torn parachute canopy he'd carefully folded back up, shredded in places from all the rounds he and Grigor had shot though it, remembering how he'd killed Grigor, using up the rest of his clip in pure blood lust and revenge.
The small bundle his folded chute made was dangerous to deploy like this. It's current condition might not fill out when he deployed it manually. Without the backpack, he was forced to hold the damaged, wing shaped parachute against his chest, the shrouds connected to the body harness to take the load. Sergeant Ball eyed his slapdash preparations and rolled his eyes, running the odds, which told him it wouldn't work.
“You ever jumped like that, without a pack?” Robby Ball, Sgt Ball's son was grinning, happy his bitching to restart the helicopter had gained them a front seat in the fight which, lucky or not, was still not quite done.
“No,” Jabo didn't look up from his GPS, just above the parachute bundle clutched tight against his belly. He couldn't refold it inside the helicopter cabin if it shifted and fell out of his grasp to spread out in the helicopter, so he held it in a death grip with one hand as he tapped at the GPS unit on his front with the other. They couldn't alter course because the controllers were threatening Ball with a fighter pass if he kept flying in the restricted area. If Jabo jumped too late he'd run out of air and hit the ground on the relatively high hilltop rushing up toward him. If he jumped early he would be too far away, unable to limp quickly toward the sniper and an easy target if the sniper looked behind him, responding to the sound of he helicopter flying overhead. With his bad leg, his radius of action was about a thousand feet, at most. The minor through and through in his leg was starting to hurt like hell when he used the calf muscle, which standing, wide legged required every second or so in the rocking helicopter.
The GPS display, tiny compared to a desktop computer screen, was barely adequate as a guide when he was flying in. Finally set up, it provided minimal detail and distances, an inch was about a quarter mile. He'd tapped in his landing spot, a red 'X', hoping it was close. The blue dot that was his current location was slowly moving toward the low valley where the squat gray concrete warehouses were located, a final pass through the 'hot zone' before he disappeared in the West, literally, since his IFF transponder would stop sending one identity, then a few minutes later, become another. Sergeant Ball took his sweet time about flying in the direction the controller was demanding he fly or lose his license, go to jail and lose his bird. It gave Jabo time to fiddle with his GPS unit on his chest, as Sargent Ball used the delay to gain as much altitude as possible.
“Oh fuck it, good enough, Robby, how's my gear look?”
“Fine with me, watch those lines when you let go, on your back should work, I guess. Ever done that, flatten out as you free fall facing up? I did it for fun one time, it's scary as hell.” His wide, nervous grin didn't tell Jabo if that was good or terribly bad.
“Nope, first time.” Jabo didn't smile and neither did Robby. Jabo ran the idea in his head, happy the young man had suggested it earlier. He would have jumped flat and face down otherwise. In that position he was sure to get tangled in his lines to end up falling without slowing down, dead when he hit.
“Well good luck and... Remember the Alamo!” he smiled, his grin as infectious as ever, making Jabo drop the concerns he'd been running through, starting with his bum leg, leaking blood down inside his boot. It already squished when he walked quickly or jogged like an old man – as fast as he could go at the moment.
“Booh Rah sol
dier,” and he staggered to the door, letting Robby brace him, taking some stress off his wounded calf.
“Remember sir, face up before you let go.”
Jabo nodded, then he stepped off, worried about his GPS display, then not, when he saw himself falling looking at the stars. Jabo quickly let go of the chute which magically fluttered away then caught in the wind before he'd reached terminal velocity, almost like a static line jump, what he'd done in ROTC camp years ago, in college, summer training – great fun then and still was. The wing popped open then sagged on one side, making him fight at the traces, then he found the right tension on the left side that made it keep level and straight, holding in enough compensation to balance what the bloody tears produced, luckily near the middle of the big wing where it made a minimal disturbance of his flight pattern, losing a little lift and glide efficiency, not a problem, he hoped.
Using one hand released from the traces, the one he didn't need keep the wing flying somewhat straight, he flipped down the GPS display, seeing his blue dot and the red target 'X' beckoning ahead of him. It gave him a strange feeling of deja vu, seeing the same layout of streets and buildings, with the added visual candy of about thirty cop cars with their flashing lights, in two groups, North and South. The different jurisdictions and departments made a variety of blue and red light patterns, all blinking on and off constantly, marking the two road blocks they'd set up to close off the scene of his fire fight. It felt like he was jumping into an action movie set, which made him the hero, a live one he hoped.
Their exit strategy, Jabo's final, backup plan agreed upon before they'd started hours ago, detailed what each two man team would do if things went south, as they had, majestically. The electricians would rope down to get off their building then hump out to the West, abandoning or burying for later recovery, all their equipment and weapons. At the first opportunity they'd call an Uber car, to get back to their assembly point. Fighting near a city in the US did have its advantages. A hundred dollar tip, to record the ride as a 'no show' on the company records, would give them enough cover to avoid being linked to what had happened.
Hell To Pay Page 35
