Target Deck - 02

by Jack Murphy

  “They will be there when we hit the ground?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Okay, are there any phase line code words you need to pass to them as we approach?”

  “Just regular communications with the flight control tower.”

  “Then play it off like any other day.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “We are going to do what we do.”

  “I can't believe this is happening. This means I've been helping that Arab group murder civilians, but why would G3 have someone doing that?”

  “Because someone contracted them to transport these people. We still don't know who is behind all of this. But the murders are about pitting the Zeta and the Sinaloa cartels against each other. They murder members and family members from both of the two largest cartels in Mexico, then they stage it to look like the opposing cartel committed the crime. This gets them to fight and wipe each other out.”

  “That is the anti-drug policy?”

  “Maybe it is part of it anyway. The real objectives may be laying in wait, in a holding position somewhere in the background until the time is right for capitalizing on these massacres and making a strategic gambit, maybe for all of Mexico considering the amount of hardware you've been transporting into the country. Then we will see what this is really about. Someone is inducing a crisis in order to create political capital for them to advance their own agenda. You never want a good crisis to go to waste Ed.”

  “That's sick.”

  “You know what the funny thing about war atrocities is? Once you start killing, it is hard to stop. I mean, what do you do for an encore? All you can do is continue to escalate the level of violence in order to scare, intimidate, or outright kill your opposition. You cut off some girls head off, so your enemy disembowels someone and shows them their insides, then what do you do? Raise the stakes, film some torture porn that is even worse. It goes on and on.”

  “But you said, once you start killing. You just blew up a base full of corrupt Mexican soldiers. Killing is what you do too.”

  “I never said that we were not a part of this shit Ed.”

  48

  Briggs Army Airfield was dead quiet in the hot summer night. As a part of Ft. Bliss, the air base was located on the far western tip of Texas, was the home of a number of US Air Force strategic airlift capabilities that moved American soldiers and war material in and out of the Middle East and Asia. As a logistics hub, it was well situated for a covert logistical airlift company to hide behind the regular legitimate activities of the military base.

  The Lockheed L-100 flying in from its milk run down to Mexico received a radio transmission from the G3 Communications hangar when it was fifteen minutes out. The flight dispatcher had received reports about a massive explosion at Militar No. 3 in Torreon and thought that he must have lost a pilot and an airplane. The concern was quickly alleviated as the pilot confirmed that he had escaped the blast and was soon calling in to the Air Traffic Control tower for permission to land at Ft. Bliss.

  Cleared for landing, the L-100 touched down at Briggs Army Airfield in the early morning hours and taxied towards the leased G3 Communications hangar. The massive hangar doors retracted open and swallowed the aircraft whole before shutting behind it. The airplane had a tail number but no official markings of any kind.

  The flight dispatcher left his office to meet with the pilot. He had been scrambling to assemble what information he could about the explosion in Torreon. His employers would be demanding answers. With the engines powering down, he walked to the rear of the aircraft as the ramp lowered. Five commandos with non-standard weapons and equipment walked off the ramp and into the hangar. They were clearly para-military troops.

  The dispatcher was outraged, marching over to meet them. He knew damn well from the flight manifests that they were not scheduled to pick up or drop off any contractors. They were running a compartmentalized program and this was a serious security breach. He opened his mouth to say something but only wind escaped his lips as one of the commandos slammed the butt of his rifle into the dispatcher's stomach.

  Deckard flung open the office door and walked right in as if he owned the place, which at that moment, he did.

  “Are you the operations manager?”

  The man behind the desk stood straight to his feet, “Who the hell are you?”

  Three other mercenaries flowed in behind Deckard, pointing their rifles at the man.

  “House cleaning,” Deckard answered. “Now sit your ass back down and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Nikita pushed the flight dispatcher into the office and flung him into a chair next to the operations manager. He was still clutching his stomach where he had been butt stroked.

  “What are your names and duty positions?” Deckard demanded.

  The two middle aged men looked away. The flight dispatcher was overweight, bald, and wore eye glasses while the operations officer looked trim despite his age. A former military or intelligence man no doubt.

  “Kurt?”

  Kurt Jager handed over his Hooligan breaching tool. With a pry bar on one side and a spike and another pry bar sticking out of the other end, it looked like some kind of war hammer straight off a 14th Century battlefield.

  “Now hold out the bald one's hand.”

  Nikita and Pat grabbed his arm and held it out in front of him.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” he pleaded.

  Deckard didn't believe in torture, but in this case he might make an exception.

  “I'm Danny,” the fat one said.

  Deckard looked over at the second prisoner.

  “Chris.”

  “Your job here?”

  “I'm a dispatcher,” Danny said.

  “Ops manager,” Chris answered.

  “I'm going to keep this simple then. Where are the guns coming from?”

  Both men clammed up.

  “I'm not going to ask a second time.”

  A single bead of sweat dripped down Chris' face.

  Deckard slammed the spike coming off the side of the Hooligan tool down on Danny's hand, impaling it on the desk. He let out a scream that was more terror then pain. His body was already going into shock, the pain would come later.

  “We're just logistics people for G3 Communications,” Chris pleaded for his friend.

  “Start talking or you're next,” Deckard said as he pried the Hoolie tool free from Danny's hand.

  “They don't usually tell us where the guns are coming from,” Chris explained. “We've seen them flown in on US military aircraft but also on CIA chartered aircraft. We think the foreign weapons are coming out of Libya, maybe Iraq as well.”

  “Enemy weapons captured by the US military?”

  “That or weapons captured by rebel fighters in the Middle East and then bought from them by the CIA. There were also a number of Private Military Companies in Libya during and after the civil war to secure Gaddafi's stockpiles. He had warehouse after warehouse of small arms, that's probably where most of it is coming from.”

  “So they're flown here to Ft. Bliss. Then what?”

  “The guns are loaded on chartered aircraft and flown to Mexico. The Office of Bi-National Intelligence in Mexico City coordinates with the El Paso Intelligence Center here on Bliss to instruct our pilots as to what airfield to drop the weapons off at.”

  “Who is giving the orders?”

  “We get our orders from the El Paso Intelligence Center, on the receiving end, the Mexicans get their orders from OBI but these are just coordination centers, not decision makers.”

  “So G3 Communications is the shot caller? They get to decide who gets what?”

  “Maybe,” the operations manager said. “But I hear it goes up to NORTHCOM and the National Security Council. G3 doesn't do shit on their own. I've worked for this company for almost ten years now and they always have paper to protect themselves. Paper that goes straight to the top.”

  Deckard hesitated. He knew
he was now deep into a nebulous area where privatized military, intelligence, and logistical companies merged with the US military and the civilian government. Five men were not about to wage war against NORTHCOM or the NSC, the White House's national security team. The President of G3 Communications was probably somewhere inside the beltway as well. They needed priority targets before their opposition figured out that a rogue group of mercenaries was back tracing their gun running operation and took counter-measures, the type that would quickly leave them dead.

  “What about moving people around the battle space? What about the Arabs moving in and out.”

  “What Arabs?”

  “They know all about it Chris,” Ed said, peering through the door. “They know about The Arab.”

  “Jesus, Ed! You are working with these people?”

  “I am now,” the pilot said stepping inside. “Those people are butchers. I saw what they did.”

  “You can't be serious,” Chris snorted. Danny held his injured hand and whimpered to himself.

  “Did you know we were ferrying death squads in and out of Mexico?”

  “I didn't know and didn't ask Ed. I knew better and thought you did too. We both knew we were not playing paddy cake down there so don't pretend you are innocent in all this.”

  “Where?” Deckard interrupted. “Where are they being flown back too? Where the hell are these guys working out of?”

  Chris took a deep breath.

  “Area 14,” he said with a sigh. “The Nevada test site.”

  “No fucking way,” Pat snarled. “You are trying to tell us that some group of Arab terrorists is being housed on a US government facility?”

  “You know where that is?” Deckard asked.

  “Yeah, it's a Department of Energy Facility where they used to do test detonations of nuclear bombs back in the old days. It is separated into different areas but there is nothing much out there today. There is an aircraft bone yard where we used to train up on aircraft take downs when I was with Delta. There are a few other facilities out that way but like I said, it's pretty empty.”

  “We are not told where the flights are coming from,” Chris said. “But between me and Danny, we've put two and two together over the years. They are being flown out of the airfield at Area 14 and then flown back after their missions are completed.”

  “The Department of Energy is putting them up?”

  “Who knows?”

  It wouldn't be the first time that a covert operation was buried behind official cover. It was actually a common practice for CIA agents to operate under official cover as State Department employees. By some estimates, more than half of State Department employees were actually working under the auspices of the CIA. DOE was nondescript enough to offer plausible top cover for a foreign fighter terrorist cell operating in Mexico, no one would look for a covert operation of that nature hidden inside the DOE.

  “Are they there now?”

  “The Arabs? Yeah. We had another pilot fly them back to Area 14 about seven or eight hours ago,” Chris said.

  “You thinking what I'm thinking?” Pat said from behind Deckard.

  “I sure am,” Deckard replied.

  Chris saw the expression on their faces.

  “They must have an entire compound over there full of those guys. With the amount of different faces we've seen over the last couple years coming through from Area 14 there must be a platoon if not a company strength element. You'll be shot to pieces.”

  “I'll fly,” Ed offered.

  “I appreciate that Ed, I really do,” Deckard said sincerely. “But I lost an airplane full of my men the last time I tried to air land on a hostile airfield that hadn't been cleared. I won't ask my men to do that again.”

  “Before I took off today I saw that the Golden Knights are here. I got to talking to one of them and they are here at Bliss to train up for a parachute jump into a Texas Rangers game next week.”

  “Sky trash,” Aghassi snorted. “I was doing solo HALO infils into Pakistan while those sky divers were telling the girls war stories in the bar.”

  Pat laughed. He had been on a few similar infils with his Delta team. Some went better than others.

  “Yeah,” Ed said. “But you guys are like some kind of black ops team that takes out the trash so why don't you just borrow their parachutes and jump into Area 14? They left everything in the hangar next door.”

  “Aghassi, go make that happen,” Deckard began assigning tasks. “Four parachutes, one tandem rig since Nikita has never done a free fall jump. Ed, get your plane refueled and warmed up. Pat, start preparing weapons and equipment for the jump.”

  “What about me?” Nikita asked.

  “You can hog tie these two knuckleheads,” Deckard said pointing to Danny and Chris. “And dump them both in a mop closet where they won't be found until our business has been concluded.”

  49

  Hot air rippled up from the surface of the Nevada desert.

  Even in the darkness of night, the mirage could be seen with the naked eye, obscuring the hills far off in the distance. The desert nights could be brutal but not as brutal as the one The Arab had lived in.

  He couldn't sleep. Tossing and turning, he was always restless, always had to keep moving. Whenever he stopped, the world came crashing in on him. As he looked out across the desert, The Arab ran a hand under his shirt and across the uneven grooves lined over his belly. The deep scars continued all the way up his chest, the horizontal slash marks matching those on his arms. More scars ran down his thighs and some on his back, as far back as he had been able to reach with his blade.

  Sometimes the scar tissue tightened and pulled at his skin, becoming extremely painful. Once a year or so his masters would have him visit a plastic surgeon to help relieve the tension.

  Lighting a cigarette, he thought about that night seven years ago. Finishing a bottle of whiskey he wandered the back streets of Baghdad, stumbling and falling every few steps. He was ready to check out. A life of poverty, petty crime, murder, and prostitution had left him with nothing. The Arab knew that he was spiraling out of control, consuming everything in his path.

  He had killed people for no reason at all, stalking them down the dark streets and sinking a knife into them. Men and children alike were his targets, whoever was vulnerable and alone. With his gang of thieves they had tracked down a man who had owed them money in a neighborhood. The Arab held him down while they took turns gang raping him.

  The Arab couldn't feel anything anymore, the alcohol didn't numb him, it but made him disoriented. Reaching for the razor blade he carried he decided to end it. The sharp blade parted skin and flesh up and down his arms, legs, and torso. Bleeding and alone he screamed, laying in the street in a drunken mess.

  Closing his eyes, he let go and the darkness took him in.

  His next memory was hazy. He woke up in a hospital bed with attendants looking over him. He came to find out later that he was in Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad. As it had turned out, the followers of a radical Sheik named Massoud had found him and taken him in. He would come to learn that they had use for a man like him.

  The following months were painful in more ways than one. As his wounds healed, he was also compelled to confess his sins to Massoud. Massoud had been a quiet and patient man, the only father figure that The Arab had ever really had. The Sheik was the leader of the group housed at Camp Ashraf, a type of refugee camp established after the 2003 American invasion. There lived the People's Mujaheddin of Iran, or MEK as they were known to the occupation forces.

  Once Massoud was convinced of The Arab's loyalty, his skills were then put to use. With additional training and access to weaponry, he spent much of his time in Iran conducting midnight border runs. MEK had been a Marxist terrorist organization that had fought inside Iran since the 1960's. Saddam had given them refuge, and now the Americans. He did well in Iran, launching kidnappings, assassinations, and bombings against government officials.

  Later, h
e was sent elsewhere in the Middle East. He even did a six month job in Chechnya. Massoud gave him orders and The Arab did not question. For the first time in his life, he had a purpose. The criminal skills he had acquired, the brutal ways of the Baghdad streets were actually seen as an asset. What once made him an outcast now made him a trusted fighter that other MEK members looked up to.

  From Libya, to Saudi Arabia, to Bahrain, The Arab did what was asked of him. Today it was Mexico, but his communications with Massoud indicated that they were just closing the net, preparing the battlefield to finally finish off Iran. The Arab looked forward to that day, the day when a piece of Iran would be handed over for him to rule over as a warlord.

  The dead gave him no cause for concern. The motivations behind the kill orders were immaterial. There were no humans involved.

  Looking up at the moon, The Arab turned and walked back to his dormitory.

  Deckard ate shit when he hit the ground.

  First his feet collided with the desert floor and then he belly flopped right into it. Spitting the grime out of his mouth, he groaned, his entire body feeling like it needed a tune up. Night landings were always rough when you couldn't see the ground and had to judge it by looking at the horizon. He should have pulled his toggles halfway down to slow his forward momentum a lot sooner.

  From the sound of things, his comrades were not fairing much better. Pat slammed down somewhere to his front. He came down heavy as he had to tandem jump with Nikita strapped to his parachute harness. Aghassi touched down beside him, apparently lighter than a feather as he pulled down on his toggles to slow the parachute's forward drive and executed a stand up landing. The black and gold colored parachute collapsed behind him.

  Grimacing, Deckard shrugged out of his parachute harness and balled it up with the parachute. They would have to hide them somewhere before moving on to their objective. Ed had lowered the ramp and put them out right over Area 14. Apparently, there was another black flight corridor established from Bliss to the Nevada test site so they did not have to worry about being picked up on radar.