Hunt the Leopard

by Don Mann

  Counting the seconds in his head, he pried another box open and felt inside. Forty…Gotta get back to Akil.

  This crate held AK ammo in polymer twenty-round mags. Did he hear firing? He ducked just as rounds ripped through the canvas cover and slammed into the metal hood.

  Akil…Fuck…

  Crocker called into his chest mic, “Romeo, Romeo. It’s Deadwood. Over.”

  No response. The radio was kaput.

  He gave himself another thirty seconds to locate RPG rounds. Reaching into an open barrel near the cab, up to his elbow in straw, he found some.

  Sweet!

  Quickly, he removed four RPG rounds and tried to clutch them under his left arm. Clumsy fuckers were about six pounds each, and three feet long. He settled for three, and grabbed the even longer RPG launcher. Swinging out of the truck and to the ground, one of the AK mags dropped into the mud. He couldn’t risk using the penlight outside, so he left it. Saw Akil on his stomach near the front tire. Crocker handed him four AK mags, mouthing, “Merry Christmas.”

  Akil grinned and pointed to the trucks ahead. Mimed someone firing.

  Crocker gestured to the trees to the right, and then toward the lead truck. Mouthed, “Nice.”

  The sound of explosions had pulled him like a magnet away from the wrecked helo and through the jungle to the south. Festus Ratty ran in a trot, leading a column of thirteen men, all armed with AKs. Some also had RPGs and Russian-made PKM (Pulemyot Kalashnikova Modernizirovany) belt-fed light machine guns.

  A mantra repeated in his head: “You wreck my shit. You gonna pay…”

  The smell of cordite and burning rubber excited him further. He didn’t care about the thick sheets of rain, or potential danger. He was so high on adrenaline that he felt invincible.

  The Leopard couldn’t wait to face the enemy, which he imagined would be Nigerian Army soldiers, unmotivated and weak. He wanted to see the fear in their eyes as they threw up their hands and surrendered. And hear their pleas as he gunned them down and captured their souls.

  They had no idea what they were up against, what it was like to be constantly hunted, moving from hiding place to hiding place, and fighting the forces of unholiness.

  He hurtled ahead, no plan of attack, no strategy. Just righteousness and anger burning through his veins.

  You will see, soldier boys, who the real warriors are. Who possess the hearts of leopards…Who has Allah on their side…

  Crocker dragged his injured right leg, which had cramped up completely. The pain begged him to stop, but he had no time. He circled through the thick brush, the long thorns of kiame shrubs tearing his arms and legs. He took care not to slip and fall. If it happened again, he might not be able to get up.

  When he figured he was roughly parallel to the lead truck, he turned and inched forward in a painful half-crouch until he heard the pop-pop-pop of AKs through the drone of rain. The water didn’t hide the sparks from the enemy barrels.

  The Cameroonians, or Ambazonians, or whoever they were, were trigger-happy. He guesstimated four shooters. Spotting a clear, narrow path through some eight-foot trees, and holding on to the trunk of a slender one, he slowly eased down to his left knee. His right leg shook as he loaded the spear-shaped PG-7VL round into the launcher.

  You’ll only get one shot. He rested the metal cylinder on his shoulder, lined up the truck in the sights, took a deep breath, exhaled, and pulled the trigger. Whoosh!

  But the weight of the rocket caused Crocker to tip the launcher slightly forward. The rocket grazed the side of a tree, took a lower trajectory, and slammed into the left side of the front bumper of the truck, and exploded. He exhaled deeply, rainwater in his eyes and mouth.

  Fuck…

  He couldn’t move anyway. Not without considerable effort. So he loaded another PG-7VL round into the launcher as re-directed AK fire flew in his direction, tearing into the leaves and bark, and fired again. This time the rocket hit within millimeters of the gas tank and the blast created a huge column of flames like an exploding volcano that blew toward Crocker.

  He lowered his head to the ground. Hot metal zinged past. Bullets now were coming from both directions—from near the trucks and behind him, north.

  Fucking Boko Haram! They’re coming…

  No time to fire the unused round. He tucked the RPG under his left arm, turned, and limped back to Akil’s position as men screamed like banshees through the rain and bush behind him. The sound grew closer.

  He’d heard that in Gaelic mythology the scream of a banshee meant that someone was about to die.

  Rounds were coming thick and fast by the time he reached Akil, now crouched on the other side of the truck—the one facing the clearing. The flames from the two vehicles ahead danced in his eyes.

  “Good work!” Akil whispered. “Who the fuck is shooting at us now?”

  “Boko Haram!”

  “It’s a soup sandwich, boss! Soup fucking sandwich…”

  They both knew they were trapped. Then gunfire came from the other side of the clearing near where they had descended. For a second Crocker thought they were being surrounded. But the shooter wasn’t directing his fire at them.

  “Where’s Manny?” he asked.

  Akil shrugged. The shots from Boko Haram in the eastern foliage now redirected toward the shooter at the right-center of the clearing.

  Crocker and Akil took this little window of opportunity. Crocker pointed left toward the road. “Let’s go!”

  They proceeded fifteen meters, just beyond the penumbra of the light from the truck, when his right ankle buckled and he started going down. For a second, he figured he’d never be able to get to his feet again—his right leg felt completely frozen from his foot to his upper thigh. Ready to tell Akil to leave him, the former Marine Akil dipped and came up under Crocker’s right shoulder, in some graceful semi-ballet motion.

  Enough weight was taken off Crocker’s bad leg so he could hop.

  “Thanks!”

  “Semper fi…”

  Crocker glanced over his shoulder as they went. Boko Haram fighters were nearing the trucks, and the Ambazonians continued to direct heavy fire to the center and north side of the clearing. They hadn’t spotted him and Akil yet.

  Mancini had saved their asses. Now they had to find a way to return the favor before their teammate was ripped apart.

  The pair of them managed to build up to a good pace, both sucking hard for air. Crocker dragged his right leg like it was made of wood. They made it two-thirds of the way to the south end of the clearing, into the cover of darkness and rain, when Akil stopped.

  “What’s a matter?”

  “We’re fucked,” Akil said as he tried to catch his breath. “Look.”

  About thirty meters ahead and to the left, near the mud road, he saw a strange gold rectangle through the slanting rain. A windshield, reflecting light from the burning truck.

  “What the hell is that?” Crocker was totally confused.

  Until he made out the partial outlines of an armored Toyota Land Cruiser with gun turret in back.

  “Can’t be the QRF.” Quick reaction force. “It’s coming from the wrong direction.”

  “More Bokos,” groaned Akil. “Now what do we do?”

  Crocker took another glance back and saw the shadows of at least a dozen fighters swarming around the trucks. It was only a matter of seconds before they located all the SEALs—himself, Akil, Gator, CT, and Mancini, and systematically finished them off.

  I screwed up.

  A high, taunting voice echoed through a megaphone behind them. “How you gonna pay, soldier boys…You gonna pay the Leopard!”

  A shiver ran up Crocker’s spine. “We can’t stay here.”

  He saw no one moving near the Land Cruiser ahead. Their only chance was to reach cover near it, fifteen meters away.

  “Go!”

  “You sure, boss?”

  “Yes!”

  They altered their course to the left. Pushed hard and
were within five meters of the bush, when the dark silhouettes of four armed men emerged from the shadows of the trees, fingers on triggers, AR-15s aimed at them.

  Crocker felt the red dot laser scope burning into his forehead. God have mercy…

  Akil grunted low, “We’re toast!” Just loud enough for the armed men to hear.

  A two-second pause, then one of the guys wearing NVGs asked, “You the Yanks?”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’re Yanks…Who are you?”

  “Brit Shell security workers. We picked up your emergency signal!”

  “Thank God…”

  The armed Brits lowered their weapons and waved Akil and Crocker forward. Two got on each side of Crocker, lifted him off the ground, and quickly carried him into the bush.

  Mancini was using an AK he had recovered from one of the dead guards. And was grateful he had it—it was the most dependable weapon he knew, especially in shit conditions like this. The trouble was he was down to a third of a mag of ammo. And he was running back the way he had come, up the embankment, with a half dozen Boko Haram savages on his tail, whooping and hollering “Allahu Akbar!”

  He paused ten meters up, his chest still aching from the stopped round earlier. As he caught his breath, he saw that the BHs had already reached his side of the clearing and were starting to climb. To add to his most serious dilemma, he had no comms and no way of knowing if any of his teammates were still alive.

  Minutes earlier, he’d seen Akil and Crocker kneeling beside one of the Ambazonian trucks, but, based on the shouts of celebration he’d heard from the other side of the clearing, he feared they’d been captured or shot.

  It was a strange, funky feeling, and especially ominous for this fit bear of a man, the veteran of hundreds of combat missions. This exact situation had always been his biggest fear—alone in a hostile land surrounded by the enemy. Two things he was sure of: he wouldn’t stop until he’d done everything he could for his teammates, and two, he would never allow the enemy to take him alive.

  Not happening…

  He would spare his wife and family the horrible ordeal of his filmed torture, beheading, or other brutal treatment. He pictured them for a split second, sitting solemnly at the dining room table.

  Gotta find my teammates and get back home one way or another…

  Imagining his wife, Carmen’s, warm, smiling face, he gritted his teeth and took a quick assessment.

  Aside from the AK, he had two grenades, a SIG Sauer 226 pistol with one full twelve-round mag, and a SOG knife. No way he was going to blast his way out of this, or outrun his pursuers, who knew the terrain a hell of a lot better than he did and were climbing up the incline like goats, and probably had food and water, when all he had was a single energy bar tucked into a pouch of his combat vest.

  Gotta find my teammates first…

  Best thing he could do was to keep the BHs guessing, and throw them off his trail. Then find a way back to that road and try to get a ride to base. He’d walk back if he had to.

  How long can I elude the enemy, when there are six on my ass now and more coming?

  His best chance would be to draw them into a trap, or fool them into thinking they were pursuing a larger force.

  Gotta find my teammates…Gotta find a way.

  Promising himself that he would live to enjoy another plate of his wife’s manicotti, Mancini surveyed the terrain as best he could in the dark. No binos, no NVGs, no comms. Scanning the shadows, he remembered a little gully about a third of the way up the embankment to his left. Nice place for a picnic in drier, less perilous times.

  Gotta find a fucking way.

  Panic wasn’t an option. If he went down, he’d go down fighting.

  Gotta find a way…

  Breathing hard, he picked through bushes in a northerly direction, thorns and low branches ripping at his clothes and arms. Ignored the scratches, wiped the rain from his forehead. Proceeded low to the ground, his thighs burning until he spotted the gully ten meters below. Knelt and listened to the Bokos climb at two o’clock.

  There’s gotta be a way out…

  A worthy opponent, he thought. The tougher the better.

  He was building up a head of steam. Picking up rocks and branches from the ground, he tossed them into the gully, counted to twenty in his head, and waited. It was allegedly an old Mohawk trick he’d learned from reading James Fenimore Cooper in middle school.

  He could hear one of the Bokos hooting through the hissing rain, trying to disguise himself as an owl. Another Boko hooted back. Mancini loosened a big rock with his foot and pushed it in the direction of the gully. It rolled and smacked a tree trunk hard, which threw it off course. Picking up momentum again, it ripped through the brush.

  This time the Bokos responded with blasts of AK fire in the direction of the sound.

  Go ahead…

  Mancini waited until he heard them clamoring up, hooting and whistling to one another. Pressed low behind the base of a tree, he pulled an M26 fragmentation grenade off his vest, and waited. Weapons fire thudded in the distance and tore into the trees to his left.

  The sound of branches shifting at one o’clock. He looked and saw six heavily armed dudes in camouflage fatigues, a variety of turbans and scarves on their heads. Two of them seemed to be silently arguing, slapping their chests and pointing in different directions. He waited until they huddled together to look into what appeared to be a primitive handheld GPS device. A little blue glow, in the dark.

  Mancini pulled the pin on the M26 and counted one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi in his head.

  On five, he rose and threw, then scurried left and higher, diving behind a tree and covering his head.

  Ka-blam!!!!

  The blast lifted him off his belly. He heard groans as he gathered his feet under him and, without waiting for the smoke to clear, turned and humped farther up the embankment and south.

  Crocker imagined he was sitting in a chair on the little balcony of his Virginia Beach apartment. Cyndi was walking toward him with a pitcher of lemonade. Her sundress patterned pink and white. Her toned legs glistened gold from the setting sun. Her finger- and toenails were painted red.

  “Babe…”

  Instead of pouring the liquid into a glass, she fed it to him direct from the pitcher, so that he gulped, choked, and the liquid splashed over his chin onto his chest.

  He started to laugh and pushed her away. “Stop…”

  “Boss…”

  He blinked and saw Akil feeding him water from a bladder, while seated on the running board of a truck. A matching dark-green Toyota Land Cruiser was parked beneath trees behind it.

  He couldn’t remember where he was. Blinking again, he spotted three armed men drift into his periphery. He started to reach for the SIG Sauer on his belt. Akil stopped him.

  “They’re friends…Mil contractors from the UK…Moxie, Brian, Rufus, and Scott. Good guys.”

  “What?”

  “Remember? The Brits. Work for Shell Oil as security consultants.”

  All he could recall was that they had been in danger. “Where…”

  “You that fucked up? Nothing to worry yourself about, boss. Relax.”

  Crocker nodded; he still wasn’t sure it wasn’t a dream.

  The tallest of the contractors grinned and saluted. “Cheers, mate…Feeling better?”

  “Cheers.”

  Akil fed him more water and two painkillers borrowed from the Brits, and explained, “They work security for Shell Nigeria at a natural gas plant farther south. They were not far from the Cameroon border checking another Shell plant nearby. Heard the MARS broadcast. When they heard we were Americans, they came to help…”

  “Hey, thanks…”

  “Anytime, mate.”

  Crocker looked up at Akil and asked, “Where are the rest of the guys? We gotta find ’em.”

  A tall Brit with red hair said, “Lead the way.”

  Akil warned, “One problem…We’re gonna have to kick some Boko Hara
m ass first.”

  The Brit winked to one of his teammates. “Why is that a problem?”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Ears that do not listen to advice, accompany the head when it is chopped off.”

  —Nigerian proverb

  As intense as the sudden firing from the other side of the clearing had been, with .50-cals and automatic weapons, Festus Ratty Kumar was surprised that any of his men had survived. Now, as he ran through the bush, questions pounded in his head. Where had the armored trucks and reinforcements come from? Had the Ambazonians and Victor Balt betrayed him? Had they attempted to screw him over and steal the girls?

  He didn’t have time to answer now, because the enemy was coming hard like rats running from a fire. But he would. And when he did, someone would have hell to pay.

  It was time to fade into the jungle like leopards and regroup. No shame in that. He wasn’t stupid. Like a leopard, he was sly and nocturnal. No one could ever hit him and escape his revenge.

  What did the infidels know? They had always judged against him, and would never stop trying to get him to judge against himself. But God’s will made him strong.

  It told him that the schoolgirls he’d kidnapped, the people he’d killed in bombings, the soldiers he’d slain, none of them would ever weigh on his conscience. Guilt was a hoax. Anything that caused you to question yourself was a trick.

  “Pull back,” Ratty shouted in Kanuri as he and his remaining five fighters ran through the brush, the soldiers on their heels. “Pull back and live to fight another day!”

  Hours ago, when they had felled the enemy helicopter, the mission had seemed like a big success. Now they were running for their lives, their lungs and muscles straining.

  Ratty turned, went to his knees, and fired. Then got up and continued picking his way through the bush.

  To his mind this was a minor skirmish in a very long struggle. They would fade back into the Sambisa and while the enemy was resting, thinking they were safe in their beds, he and his men would strike again. Next time they would be even more clever and terrifying, killing more infidels, and maybe kidnapping more girls.