Operation

by Tony Ruggiero

  When they arrived at their observing destination, Johnson donned his night vision equipment and surveyed the area. The air reconnaissance photos did not reveal if there were any electronic sensors in place such as early alert devices. Johnson scanned the area for telltale signs of the devices but found none and gave the all-clear sign to his team. As he did, he saw from their subtle movements that they were anxious to move in. They were at a heightened state because they had not fed in three days, a fact that Johnson had not agreed with. But there was nothing he could do about that now except hope that their anxiousness did not lead to mistakes that gave away their position.

  The site was guarded by four men on the topmost walls, two per wall on the oddly-shaped structure. The only entrance was guarded by three men who were seated in old wooden chairs outside of the wrought iron gate; the chain and lock around the gate was clearly visible. Andre and Iliga would take the guards on the walls and Dimitri and Johnson would take the gate, and then converge on the building to find their targets.

  The main advantage they were banking on was the complacency of the guards on the top of the building. A normal man couldn’t climb the slick, straight walls—it was considered impenetrable. However, Dimitri’s men would be able to scale it easily.

  As soon as Andre and Iliga were off, Dimitri and Johnson made for the gate, using the darkness as cover until they reached the perimeter of light. Now they waited for the distraction from the water to hide their final approach. The fishing boat that brought them in had positioned a small dinghy that would burst into flames shortly, diverting the guard’s attention from the land and toward the bay.

  Dimitri had insisted they did not need the diversion because they could use their super speed to cross the final distance, but Johnson was not able to move as fast and would be a sitting target without the distraction. It was then suggested that Johnson wait at the observation position for them to return, but he quickly vetoed this idea. He had orders to accompany the team, as well as his own personal desire to see the team in action firsthand.

  The explosion broke the quiet of the night. Johnson and his men glanced in the direction of the horrendous sound to see the flames from the dinghy as it lit up the night. The ignition of the explosion had been activated from the fishing boat. All the guards on the fortress also turned toward the fire, and. Johnson and his men advanced the last hundred yards to the fortress.

  Dimitri did not wait for Johnson as he sped toward the gate. The guards had turned as expected to check out the flare of light and as they turned back to the front, they were face to face with Dimitri. He effortlessly slashed two throats with his hands and tore into the remaining man with his fangs almost simultaneously. The last man fell to the ground as Johnson arrived, blood flowing freely from the neck where Dimitri had struck.

  Dimitri leaned over one of the bleeding men and drank greedily. Johnson listened to the sickening slurping sound that he made as he drank his fill before letting the body fall to the ground with a quiet thud. Johnson watched intently as Dimitri wiped the blood from his face and licked his fingers, thinking it extremely odd; the thought of eating in the middle of the mission.

  But this was not merely eating, he thought, it was life and strength flowing into their bodies.

  They entered into a small courtyard. Only one section was lit; they assumed that was the location of the three targets. Using his night vision goggles, Johnson was able to determine that the dark areas contained more guards who were asleep. If things went as planned, they would kill them on the way out, leaving no survivors. Just as Stone had instructed them.

  Andre and Iliga joined them and Johnson noted similar blood stains on their clothing, which indicated that they too had fed on their prey. Hopefully they would all be focused now on the most important part of the mission, now that their thirst had been quenched...for the moment.

  They approached the area that was lit from the inside and prepared to enter through the door and window. Johnson removed his night vision goggles and slid up to the window and peered inside. He recognized the primary targets sitting around a table, sipping drinks and playing cards; there were three other men that he did not recognize that sat away from the group. They were probably bodyguards.

  The room was oddly shaped, Johnson thought, it looked smaller on the inside then it did on the outside. He shrugged it off, attributing it to the age of the building as he made a hand signal to Dimitri that indicated the number six. Dimitri nodded and flashed the signal to Andre and Iliga.

  Dimitri indicated to Johnson that he should let them go in first, then he should follow. Johnson shook his head; he knew the three men would not have enough time to recover before he could blanket them with his silenced automatic weapon. He indicated a countdown with his fingers starting at five and working its way to one. When the last digit was gone, they burst into the room.

  The look of surprise on the three men sitting at the card table was not what Johnson expected to see. As realization struck them they dived under the large wooden table instead of bolting from the room. Johnson levied his weapon toward them as Dimitri and his men made fast work of the bodyguards. Almost at the same moment, a false wall exploded, revealing the true size of the room and three men that had been concealed there were revealed as their weapons blazed away.

  Johnson went for cover but not before being hit several times in the chest. Dimitri moved toward the armed men, who smiled because they assumed they had the superior edge over the attackers. They fired a burst into Dimitri. He, in turn, smiled as he kept moving toward them. Alarm appeared on the gunmen’s faces as Dimitri reached them, obviously unharmed. He ripped their flesh with his clawed hands as if slicing through butter with a sharp knife.

  “Take the three under the table,” Dimitri growled at Andre and Iliga, recognizing there was no longer a need for silence since the gunfire had erupted. “Kill them quickly.” He moved toward Johnson, who lay on the ground unmoving.

  Johnson tried to speak, but the blood pooled in his mouth making his weak words garbled and barely understandable.

  “We’ll get you back to the boat,” Dimitri said. “Hold on.”

  “Won’t...make...it,” Johnson croaked.

  “The men on the fishing boat have heard the gunfire, they will move in closer to pick us up,” Dimitri said. He looked over Johnson’s wounds and saw the severity of them. He was losing blood quickly and would probably be dead in a matter of minutes.

  “I’ll...be...dead by...then,” Johnson said, as if he had read Dimitri’s thoughts.

  “Yes, you will,” Dimitri said, seeing no point in lying. “We can’t save you…I’m sorry.”

  “You...you can...can...let me live,” Johnson said. Dimitri watched as the blood flowed from his wounds and pooled on the ground, the smell tantalizing and teasing his senses. If not for his earlier feeding, he would not have been able to control himself.

  “You so much want to be like us, don’t you?” Dimitri asked, already knowing how Johnson felt about their abilities and how he admired them.

  “Yes,” Johnson uttered. “Like you.”

  “Close your eyes,” Dimitri said, knowing that Johnson would soon be dead. “It may hurt for a moment but it will pass quickly.”

  “Thank…y-o-u,” Johnson said softly as he did as Dimitri had asked and closed his eyes. Dimitri gazed upon Johnson’s prone body as he placed his hands on Johnson’s head and quickly twisted his neck, snapping it. He gently laid the head down on the ground.

  “It is better this way,” Dimitri whispered. “You have too much anger in your soul and it would be your death again and again. This way it is over, your fate sealed.”

  Dimitri bent over Johnson’s dead body and searched through his pockets for the remote device that controlled the collars. He found it, covered in blood and shattered in the center, the result of a bullet impact. In its damaged condition, the collar release would be not operate. He cursed, returned it to the pocket, and then picked up the body, slinging it ove
r his shoulder.

  “Andre, Iliga, let’s go,” Dimitri said as they heard the voices coming closer. “Set the explosives for thirty seconds.” They removed the explosives from their packs and placed the clay-like mounds and their timers on the floor.

  “Out the window and head for the beach,” Dimitri said. “Hurry!”

  The three men moved swiftly the way they had come. A few of the hired gunmen, still putting their clothes on, crossed their path and were easily dispatched by Andre and Iliga, who were becoming more adept at killing, Dimitri noticed. In addition, they kept a watchful eye for any explosive weapons that could harm them, but at this point saw only standard guns.

  They were out the main gate as the explosions went off, lighting up the sky for miles around them; sending mortar, bricks, and wood in a killing expulsion from its center. They doubted if anyone inside the compound lived through it.

  As they rowed back to the fishing boat that waited for them, Dimitri stared at the dead body of Johnson. He didn’t feel remorse at not having saved his life by changing him. He knew it would have been a grave mistake in doing so and it would have complicated things immensely in terms of them ever regaining their own freedom.

  Johnson hadn’t gotten his wish, but Stone had, he thought. There had been plenty of killing and death—on both sides.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  “What the hell happened?” General Stone asked as he sat in the conference room at SOCOM headquarters.

  “They had men hidden behind a fake wall,” Dimitri said calmly. “We were in the room and committed to the fight before we could do anything. Lieutenant Johnson was in their direct line of fire. Even before I could move to his aid, the shots from the weapons had found him.”

  “Damn,” Stone said reflectively. “He was a good man. A lot like myself, I think.” Then in a sudden change of direction, his mood swung to other thoughts. “Hell, you showed them good though, didn’t you? Killed every single one of them.”

  Dimitri remained silent.

  Stone continued. “It’ll be months before they can reform into any kind of organization, and before that, we will strike again. Keep them down in their own filth of death,” he said, and smiled at Dimitri. “I’m not going to send you back to Norfolk yet. There is another spot I want you and your men to take care of. It will be difficult, but I’ll assign another officer to take Johnson’s place.”

  “Reese,” Dimitri said, breaking his silence. “Commander Reese would be the logical choice.”

  “He’s not an operator,” Stone said immediately.

  “He does not have to be,” Dimitri countered. “That is what I believe went wrong last time. Johnson did not need to be in there with us. He should have waited outside the compound area. We obviously work more efficiently without the human element. You can still maintain communications with us as well as keep tabs on what is happening with your sophisticated tracking devices. By our performance on the mission, we have proven that we can accomplish our tasks more efficiently without having a human watchdog.”

  “I can see your point to an extent,” Stone agreed. “But why Reese?”

  “We have a rapport established and he understands our motives and behavior. And we...trust him. Anyone else you bring in at this time would be new and we would have to start fresh again, and as you have already said, time is short.”

  “Yes, “Stone said. “Time is short and I have to admit your reasoning on Reese and the tactics make sense. But I still don’t trust the man.”

  “He is a military man,” Dimitri asserted.

  “Not like us,” Stone said, as he pointed from himself to Dimitri. “We understand killing. He tried to find a way around it.”

  “If forced—”

  “Yes,” Stone interjected. “I know if he were pushed, he would probably kill if he had to—but he thinks about it too damn much.”

  “He has a conscience,” Dimitri said.

  “He is a fool. He tries to rationalize everything. He believes in cause and effect rather than being preemptive in his thinking. In the end he would leave things to a diplomatic rather then a military solution.”

  “I think you underestimate him,” Dimitri said casually.

  “Perhaps, but what if he refuses to go along with you and the mission?”

  “He won’t,” Dimitri replied. “He will do whatever he has to in order to be able to continue to study my men and I. That is what he wants.”

  “You seem to understand his motivations pretty well.”

  “Commander Reese is driven by his own motivations as you are driven by yours,” Dimitri said.

  “I see,” Stone said, as he looked warily at Dimitri. “You seem to be thinking with a higher level of clarity than usual.”

  “It’s the benefit of the human blood. It heightens the awareness of our minds and makes thinking sharper.”

  “Hmm,” Stone said in a musing tone of voice. “Does that mean I shouldn’t let you have too much of this blood then? Perhaps you will outsmart me?”

  “Do you want your missions accomplished efficiently?” Dimitri asked as he avoided the other half of the question Stone had posed.

  “Of course I do,” Stone said as he smiled. “But if you get too sharp of mind, you might try and trick me.”

  Dimitri smiled back and gently touched the collar he wore. “As long you have the power to unleash the fluid in these collars, you cannot be tricked.”

  “We have an understanding then.”

  “Oh, yes,” Dimitri said. “We have an understanding. Keeping us fed with the human blood will keep us at our optimum killing efficiency and it is a better alternative to death, a much better arrangement.”

  “Good,” Stone said. “The next mission goes in two days.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Reese arrived in SOCOM and was immediately taken to the area where the team was being kept—at the far end of the secure runway area. He found himself in the conference room waiting for General Stone, wondering what could have happened that had him summoned here on such short notice.

  Stone entered the room, Reese stood and shook hands with the man and sat back down.

  “Commander, we have had an unfortunate event. Johnson has been killed and I need you to go with the team on a mission. Can you handle that?”

  “Killed how?” Reese asked, shocked at the news of Johnson’s death. He immediately thought that Dimitri or one of the others had perhaps tried to escape. “It wasn’t the vampires, was it? What happened?”

  “No. It was gunfire from those low life drug-smuggling scum. There was a false wall or something, ask Dimitri, he can provide you all the details on what happened.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Reese said, and meant it. He had liked Johnson in a way, even though he was a bit too gung-ho for him. However, ever since he became involved with the creatures, he seemed to change somewhat, almost as if he wanted…Reese searched for the meaning of his own thoughts. Finally it came to him. Johnson had wanted to be one of them. Yes…but if that was the case, then why didn’t Dimitri save his life when—

  “I’ll be blunt with you, Reese,” Stone said, interrupting his thoughts. “You’re a smart guy and you can’t tell me you don’t really comprehend what is happening here. Dimitri has asked that you take Johnson’s place. What I need from you is your promise to cooperate fully and completely before I can explain the mission and we don’t have a lot of time. If you can’t commit to this, then you’re finished here and you will be immediately sent back to your previous assignment. Any hopes you might have of being around these creatures will be ended.”

  Reese was stunned at the heartlessness of Stone and his easy dismissal of the death of Johnson. He was being pushed into a corner to either do what he was being asked, or he would be shoved out of the picture completely. However, he wondered if Stone was bluffing him about his removal. Dimitri and his men appreciated him and he found it hard to believe that they would just agree to an end of their educational aspect of their
lives. He also was the only one with the most complete background to work on the assignment.

  “What is the mission about?” Reese asked, deciding to see if he could get Stone to tell him anything else.

  “One moment, Commander,” Stone said as he picked up the phone and dialed. “Scott, come in here.”

  Seconds later, Scott entered the room accompanied by one of the Marine guards Reese recognized as one of the two that was on duty outside of the door. Scott’s presence along with the Marine guard was not an encouraging site.

  General Stone turned toward Reese. “I can’t tell you anything specific before you give me your word. However, I can tell you that the mission is a vital part of protecting the United States from a real threat. If you say you can’t operate under that condition, Commander Scott and this Marine will escort you out of here right now. So—are you in or out, Commander?”

  “What exactly am I going to do?” Reese asked. “I’m not an—”

  “Never mind that right now,” Stone said firmly, the irritation quite apparent in his voice. “Are you in or out?”

  Reese didn’t think Stone was bluffing any longer. He looked toward Commander Scott to see if there was any look on his face that would tell him anything, but Scott’s eyes were focused upon the general.

  “I’m in,” Reese said. Whatever Stone had in mind was secondary to his own commitment to studying these creatures.

  “Good—good,” Stone said. He patted Reese on the shoulder. “You made the right decision.” He then turned toward Scott. “Thank you, Commander, that’s all.”

  “Yes, sir,” Scott said. He and the Marine saluted, turned and exited the room.

  “Now, let’s get to the specifics,” Stone said. “You are there to purely keep an eye on our friends. Just make sure that they do what they are there for.”

  “This is a reconnaissance mission, correct?” Reese asked.

  Stone looked at Reese with a disbelieving look on his face. “Commander, you never really believed that bullshit story, did you? Even you aren’t that stupid.”