Odyssey

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

Gambit

  Homer emerged into the dark and cool sea air – to the sound of the river boat’s engines starting up, a lot louder than the stealth boat’s. When he looked down into the pilot’s station, Kili looked back up at him, beard jutting. Hopping down to the lower deck, Homer said, “You know, they’ll send you outside the wire, too, just for giving me a lift. Or kill you outright.”

  Kili nodded in response. His face was no longer stony with wariness, nor crushed with guilt – it was now steeled with resolve. Switched on, ready, and calm. He, too, had made a decision. “It’s not a lift, brother. It’s an insertion – of a two-man team.”

  Homer just nodded in response.

  “Also,” Kili said, “they’ll have to actually kill me to kill me.”

  Homer looked back up to see Sarah standing over them on the Stiletto. She said, “I was going to try one last thing – reminding you that we’re swim buddies, and you never leave your swim buddy.” She nodded down at Kili. “But I guess that position was taken a long time ago.”

  Homer nodded back at her.

  Kili blasted the engines up to a roar, and spun them around.

  And they headed back in to shore, together.

  * * *

  “So, the docks are out,” Homer shouted.

  “Yeah. They’ll just shoot us out of the water.”

  It was full on dark now, and both men had their helmet-mounted NVGs down. Homer monitored the approaching line of the shore as they skimmed across the ocean surface.

  “We still need to beach somewhere close.”

  “Check,” Kili said. “No time for a long infil on foot. Still, we need to try to give the docks as wide a berth as we can.”

  “Hey, since we have a minute,” Homer said. “What was it you were going to tell me? About Ellie.”

  “Oh, man. Forget it.”

  “It was about her and Odin, wasn’t it?”

  “Ah, shit. Homer, listen. No one knew. Or everyone did, I don’t know. God, no one thought you were coming back.”

  The over-powered flat-bottomed boat roared into the mouth of the inland waterway, banking and spraying water as Kili took the first turn, throttling their power down slightly.

  Homer took a deep breath. “What I need to know is – was she doing it of her own free will? Or was she coerced?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was she doing it to protect the kids? Maybe even to keep them all there?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. God, I hope no—”

  He stopped speaking not because rounds started cutting the air over their heads or plinking into the hull of the boat – but because the darkness lit up with IR aiming lasers, originating far in the distance, but stretching right to their faces.

  It was a half-second later that rounds started cutting the air and tearing up the hull. They hadn’t cut a wide enough berth. Homer ducked down, as Kili took the boat into a screaming, sliding, wave-crashing turn. But in the narrow waterway, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of room to run.

  Except up onto shore.

  He took them into it at nearly full speed.

  * * *

  “Shit, that happened fast,” Kili said.

  “Yeah,” Homer said. “Everyone on this team can shoot.”

  Both men were half-buried face down in the mud of the riverbank, having been thrown from the open boat through the air when it collided with the edge of the shore.

  “You hit?”

  “Not yet.”

  As Homer pulled himself out of the mud, he didn’t second-guess Kili’s ramming maneuver. It had been the right call. Getting within range of the team’s guns had been a bad mistake. But remaining in sight of them would have been a worse one, and fatal. They couldn’t have stayed there and lived.

  But it was also clear they couldn’t stay here and live.

  Another missile, perhaps the same kind, streaked in from out of the dark and impacted the beached boat right behind them. This one didn’t hit the engines, but directly amidships, and the explosion was blinding, sending rippling heat climbing up Homer’s legs. When he opened his eyes, he saw the aiming lasers again – but originating closer now.

  Their insertion was being ambushed, right here on shore.

  Which probably shouldn’t have been a surprise, hastily improvised as their plan was. The Ulfhednar, or someone, were working in on them already – fast and hard. Rounds cut the night air and furrowed the mud, and a frag grenade whumped off, close.

  “Move,” Homer said, already doing so.

  In seconds, he and Kili were off the riverbank and into something like cover in the treeline. But also in seconds, Homer felt the cold shock of the reality of this – that they were now fighting guys as good as them. Team Six SEALs with many years of the best military training in the world, and who had completed and survived hundreds of high-speed missions.

  Without much preamble, this was turning into the fight of Homer’s life.

  He didn’t even have time to think about the fact that he was not just fighting Tier-1 shooters – but trying to kill his own brothers. He couldn’t think about that and live with himself. But he also couldn’t think about that and have time to stay alive.

  Whisper-silent rounds chipped flecks off the tree he sheltered behind, while he sensed at least one shooter working his left flank to split his cover, then gun him down. He had to move. And they also had to do their own probing – get some sense of how many guys they were facing, as well as their positions.

  On the upside, Homer was fighting alongside Kili – and those 400-plus missions they ran together were paying off, each man moving and reacting in perfect sync, not having to coordinate by voice or visual, each knowing where the other was going and shooting before even he did.

  Desperation also doesn’t hurt, Homer thought.

  Because, despite fighting perfectly in sync, Homer quickly found they were hitting a brick wall, or rather a lead one, in this copse of trees, facing back toward the Annex. He couldn’t get a head count – with no muzzle flashes, almost no sound signatures, and their opponents being smart enough to actuate their IR aiming lasers only when they needed them, knowing Homer and Kili had NVGs. But he could definitely tell they were outnumbered – at least three, maybe five, to two.

  But probably four. Always in pairs.

  And four on two was more than enough numerical advantage for them to make short work of Homer and Kili.

  Not least because these guys were fast – breathtakingly fast – plus moved with perfect economy, assurance, and tactical mastery. Homer hadn’t seen anyone move this quickly since the kill house. And, despite desperately needing to focus on the fight he was in, he found himself flashing back to that first time doing CQB with his squadron. He thought he’d known what speed was, first from SQT, then Green Team – but those guys moved faster than he’d known it was possible for shooters to move.

  And now they were moving on him.

  On top of his other problems, he started having to worry about ammo – because fighting the living, other shooters, never mind Tier-1 guys, was definitely not like fighting the dead. It wasn’t even much like fighting insurgents or jihadis. Covering fire, putting rounds downrange, wouldn’t keep down the heads of the dead – it would just draw more. But getting lead on target, or near it, would keep opposing shooters’ heads down – which was critical to staying alive in a gunfight.

  Particularly if you needed to maneuver.

  Which Kili and Homer definitely did – they needed to fire and maneuver, both to stay on their feet, and to stay in the fight.

  But, even more importantly, to keep their opponents from maneuvering in on them, sweeping around and over them. Because guys at this level wouldn’t take long before achieving superior tactical position. And at that point the fight was basically over – all but zipping up the body bags.

  Homer and Kili’s.

  Something had to change – to borrow a line from Handon.

  And then, in growing desperation, with l
ead cutting the air around his face, Homer for some reason mentally replayed what that SQT shooting instructor had told him, all those years ago:

  “Never forget – we are gunfighters. And there’s no second place in a gunfight. We’re there to win.”

  * * *

  He formed a new plan in the next seconds, then communicated it to Kili in a couple more, using hand signals. But even as he tensed his leg muscles to power himself up and break toward the treeline, and the waterline beyond that—

  Kili rose and took off instead.

  And just like that he was gone, tear-assing toward the glow of the beached and burning boat, out onto the riverbank, too late for Homer to stop him. And he didn’t have time to try – because he had to dynamically slot into the plan’s other role. First he put down withering covering fire, spending more ammo than he would have chosen – for anything but keeping his best friend alive. In seconds, he sensed as much as saw Kili reach the cover of the burning boat – or, rather, the non-burning part of the boat.

  Its stern, which still stuck out into the water.

  From there, standing waist deep, leaning out, Kili started tearing up the treeline. Which was Homer’s signal to get up, get moving, and break left.

  This was a gambit. Going for the cover of the boat, beyond the main fight and cover of the trees, was a way of spreading the flanks of their numerically superior opponents, and getting back in the fight. Maybe even getting the upper hand. The diciest part of it – Kili making it to the boat alive – was already done.

  And as Homer pushed left, he sensed it working. Their opponents were back-footed, having to react, their cover getting pie-sliced away. Homer moved and shot, pushing their advantage, being aggressive, then made an open shot in a half-second look he got, couldn’t tell if it was on body armor. They were still underdogs, and this could still go either way. But they were active, getting aggressive. So Homer kept moving, kept shooting, keeping half an eye on Kili…

  And then he saw Kili press their advantage, too – too far.

  He pushed out beyond the stern of the boat, trying to spread the flanks farther, splashing through knee-deep water toward the bank. But he had stepped out into the open.

  And he was now backlit by flames. Silhouetted.

  It was a rookie error, a bad one. You didn’t give shooters of this skill and natural talent a look at you like that. But, for some reason Homer couldn’t fathom, he did.

  And they took it.

  In an eye blink, Kili jerked from bullet impacts, spun away, and went down, falling over on his face into the shallows of the waterway.

  And just like that, Homer was on his own. Down to one.

  Four on one.

  * * *

  And he never had time to develop a new plan.

  The four remaining shooters all turned on him, their backs to the water, their rear secure. It was just clean-up now, only a matter of time. And time that would be measured in seconds.

  But then, just trying to keep his head up, keep his gun in the fight, Homer was able to see through the trees, beyond his advancing opponents, and out to the open air above the river. And he saw the last thing he expected to.

  But it did explain Kili’s decision to break cover.

  The compact man rose silently out of the water, 20 meters downstream from where he’d gone into it, rivulets streaming off his beard, weapon up and level, NVGs pointed over the top of them, aiming laser falling cooly on the backs of the four men facing Homer. And he started shooting. Half of them spun, dropped, and tried to react. But they were caught right in a kill zone, dead to rights, and getting ground between the millstones.

  Homer rose and pushed out as well, taking the handful of shots he needed to as he moved forward, fast and smooth.

  In two seconds it was all over.

  Four men dead on the ground.

  Kili walked across the narrow strand of shore, dripping water, rubbing his thick ribcage underneath his vest, right in front of his heart. Homer shook his head in wonder. As he approached his friend, his whole body filled with gratitude that Kili was still alive, never mind that he still was.

  He said, “What the hell made you think they weren’t going to make a headshot? Before you pretended to go down?”

  Kili turned his head to the side – where Homer could see a circular, wet, matted section of beard. “What makes you think they didn’t?” It was a ragged bullet hole, right through his cheek. “Luckily I had my mouth open. Sucking air.”

  Homer stepped forward, got a pressure bandage out of Kili’s blowout kit, and slapped it on the hairy face – which he knew wouldn’t keep the wound from seeping into his mouth. Already Kili was spitting out blood, trying to speak again.

  “Don’t talk,” Homer said. “You sound like Donald Duck.”

  Kili tried not to laugh, nodded, and turned to move out.

  But Homer didn’t follow. Instead, he looked down at the bodies on the ground at their feet. Regarding what he had done. He had made headshots on all his targets. But now he could see it hadn’t been necessary – they weren’t wearing ceramic plates in their vests. But they sure as hell were wearing those useless wolf pelts. Maybe their arrogance had made them complacent – fighting the dead, or untrained civilians.

  Still, what Homer had done to these men’s faces…

  Just made it all the more horrible for him. And he realized he had crossed a moral Rubicon. A point of no return. He had killed his brother SEALs. His teammates. And there could be no coming back from that. Once again, he wondered if he was really an instrument of God’s righteousness. Or if this was just another cycle of Israelites turning on Canaanites.

  God’s children tearing each other to pieces.

  He squatted down and looted the bodies for rifle mags. Plus a couple of grenades.

  And a keycard.

  Hunting the Cyclops

  Sarah stole a look over her shoulder, making sure the kids were still where she’d put them. Whatever else, and whatever her feelings about small people, these ones were well-behaved.

  Well-trained, rather.

  She herself felt a lot less well-trained – but Homer’s 90-second course of instruction on piloting the Stiletto was sufficient. Basically, all she needed to do was keep the engine at its lowest power, and keep their nose pointed at the waypoint on the nav console. Actually, neither of those tasks required that she do anything. The boat just did them.

  Her only job would be to stop them when they got there.

  For now, motoring quietly across the black and silent surface of the Atlantic, the equally black Virginia coast now invisible behind them, she had nothing to do but think. And all she could think about was the choice Homer had made. Obviously, he had decided going back was his duty. But, thinking of the two children sitting quietly behind her, whom Homer had fought across half a continent to find and rescue, she wondered again:

  What about his duty to them?

  Not to mention to Handon, and the rest of Alpha. To saving the world, and everyone left. How could he square what looked to her like a suicide mission, with those duties?

  She had no idea.

  Looking down to the console, she could see they were nearly at their way point, so she killed the engines. She also checked the radar, to the extent she understood the display, and craned her neck looking out the front ports. She couldn’t see much in the dark, but everything looked clear. They were still alone.

  Maybe it’s the Lance Factor, she thought.

  Or maybe God was looking out for them.

  And with that thought, as the boat coasted to a stop around her, thinking again about the paradox of Homer’s choice, she realized that might actually be the only thing that made any sense. That Homer really did think God was going to protect him. How the hell else could he dive back into that lion’s den – taking on over 150 of the deadliest, most skilled, and most resolved warriors who had ever walked the planet? With only a single teammate? And expect to walk back out again?

  She f
elt a tug on her sleeve.

  Looking down, she saw Isabel, standing knee-high to her, still clutching her bear. And, understandably, looking worried. It took Sarah a second to work out… she was worried about her.

  “It’s okay,” Isabel said. “He’ll come back.”

  Sarah smiled, and hugged the girl to her legs. And she thought: I hope Isabel knows something I don’t.

  Maybe Homer really was beloved by God.

  * * *

  Homer wrapped his shemagh around a rock.

  And he bashed through the glass of one of the emergency-exit doors on the back of the building. Given that the glass was reinforced with heavy-gauge wire, it took some bashing. But it was better than using their keycards to badge themselves in. He’d made the mistake of announcing his location, using security credentials, once already.

  He couldn’t afford to do it again.

  He pushed open the door for Kili, and the two of them slithered inside, rifles up, clearing and covering as they moved forward in tandem. Homer could see the dark patch on the bandage on Kili’s cheek had grown bigger, the wound seeping. He was worried about his friend – but not worried about him remaining operational, for as long as it took to do this. Team guys had demonstrated many times that they could fight while hurt.

  As their saying went: You are NEVER out of the fight.

  It was the most important line of the SEAL Ethos.

  They moved smoothly and silently through the dim light of the corridors – the lighting had been kept low since Homer’d been here, no doubt to spare the generators and fuel. But now somehow they seemed darker. Moreover, Homer got the sense the building was strangely empty. It was no longer daytime, but it also wasn’t the middle of the night. Had the mission launched? Was everyone down in the staging area? Or else…

  Yeah. This whole place now felt like a trap.

  They heard, but didn’t see, a few doors close, out ahead of them, usually around corners, and only as they approached. Maybe people were hiding out, hunkering down. Was it possible they wanted to stay out of it? Either way, Homer guessed they all felt trouble brewing. A storm coming.

  He pressed his mouth to Kili’s ear. “Where do you figure?”