The Grave Diggers

by Chris Fritschi

  Puffing hard, he ran to the distant edge of rock. Desperately, Tate scanned for anything that would give him a direction. It was taking too long; he was hemorrhaging time.

  His head snapped up at the sound of an explosion. The sharp crack of gunfire opened up nearby, and he bolted towards it.

  Tate came to a stop beside a cluster of dense brush. The sounds of assault rifles were coming right from the other side of it, interspersed with the chatter of a machine gun farther away.

  He guessed at least one person on his team was shooting back, until a couple of rounds punched through the foliage inches from his head, then all doubt was removed.

  "This is Tate," he whispered into his radio. "I'm down range from your location. Everyone hold your fire. I say again, do not shoot."

  The last thing he needed was to be shot by his own team. The distant machine gun went quiet, and he cautiously peered through the foliage.

  From his vantage point, Tate was directly behind one of the enemy soldiers. Out of the corner of his eye, Tate saw movement through the gaps between the palm leaves several feet to his left.

  That's two of them, Tate thought, but where's the third? He feared the missing man was flanking his team, but which way?

  There wasn't time to find him. Tate knew somewhere behind him another enemy pursuit team was closing the distance.

  He pulled his Ka-Bar clear of its sheath and moved smoothly through the brush.

  In one practiced motion, he grabbed the soldier and drove the knife into the base of his skull. His gasp of surprise died in his lungs.

  Tate pushed the body away and snatched up the dead man's rifle. The second soldier glanced up in alarm as Tate came through the palm leaves, shooting as he moved. He dropped the soldier quickly with a three round burst.

  Now he had to find the… Dirt and wood spat up as bullets chewed the ground, inches from Tate. Forty feet away, the third man broke cover.

  Tate snapped the borrowed rifle to his shoulder and fired. The rifle kicked only once, telling Tate the magazine empty.

  At the same time, the other man stopped shooting, his gun empty, too.

  The men hesitated in the abrupt silence, watching each other.

  Tate broke the stillness, dropping the empty rifle and reached for his own, slung from his shoulder. With deftness of motion, the other man hit the mag release with one hand, while grabbing a fresh magazine with the other. It was a race of seconds who would be shooting first.

  It happened so fast neither man saw it coming.

  Tate was lifting his rifle to his shoulder as the other chambered a round in his gun.

  Two Vix broke from the dense green behind the soldier, who let out a gut wrenching scream as they fell on him with a snarl.

  They attacked with a frenzy, clawing whatever was in reach. The man grunted, trying to push himself up as one blindly gouged at his backpack, ripping away shreds of fabric with its teeth. The other tore into the back of his leg, burying its face in the raw, wet muscle and blood.

  He let out wail of pain, fixing Tate with his gaze, beseeching him for salvation.

  Tate nodded imperceptibly and fixed him in his gun sights. He snapped two quick rounds and the man's face dropped into the dirt, free from his suffering.

  The gunshots did nothing to distract the Vix from their hunger, making them easy targets for Tate. One after the other, he shot them in the head and their motionless husks slumped over the dead soldier.

  "Squad, this is Tate," he said into his radio. "All hostiles are down. I'm coming over."

  Tate flinched as a gunshot cracked to his right. He pivoted, looking for a target but saw nothing.

  The next thing he heard was Rosse yelling somewhere nearby.

  "Son of a bitch, puss bucket, ass cracker," bellowed Rosse. "Get this shit sack offa me!"

  Tate ran to the source of all the yelling and found Rosse scrambling to get out from under a motionless Vix.

  Wesson was grinning down at him with a satisfied expression. "You know, most people have the decency to get a room."

  Rosse untangled himself and flung the corpse off. He jumped to his feet, brushing away real and imagined beetles.

  "Yeah, really funny."

  CHAPTER TEN

  ESCAPE

  It had been an hour since Tate had rejoined the team. Hoping to outdistance the second pursuit team, he pushed his squad at a demanding pace, but in his gut he knew they'd never make it back to the checkpoint before the enemy caught up.

  Alone, he could easily evade his trackers and make it back to Checkpoint Phoenix, but he'd have to cut his team loose, condemning them to a death sentence at the hands of their attackers.

  Tate remembered two missions with the Night Devils where he faced the real possibility he'd have to die for the success of the mission; luck or providence had intervened, and he had lived to see another day.

  The experience had taught him that sometimes lives had to be sacrificed for the mission to succeed.

  Looking at the sweat-streaked faces of his team, he weighed his next decision; theirs wouldn't be the first faces he'd committed to memory, but were those secret documents worth six lives? Somebody thought they were, enough to violate a UN treaty, invade US soil, and risk starting a war.

  But, this wasn't war and, Tate decided, those rules didn’t apply here. In fact, because the secrecy of the mission was already compromised, a lot of rules about this mission had been swept off the table.

  Tate made his decision. Everyone was getting home today.

  "Cooper, bring me the radio."

  Everyone watched as Cooper brought it over and powered it up.

  Tate set the frequency reserved for the mission and made the call. "This is Rover Actual. I say again, this is Rover Actual. Requesting hot extraction. Over."

  Tate released the transmit button, waiting for a reply, but the radio only hissed uninterrupted.

  It was nearly a minute before the radio crackled as a voice replied. "We copy request for hot extraction. Rover Actual, authenticate."

  Tate keyed the mic. "This is Rover Actual. Authentication is Romeo, Oscar, five, five, niner. How copy?"

  "Copy, Rover Actual. Chopper is airborne and heading to your extraction point."

  "Exfil location has changed," said Tate. "New location is grid four, three, November..." He was interrupted by a loud burst of static, followed by a different voice.

  "Negative, Rover Actual," said the new voice. "You're exfil location cannot be changed. Mission secrecy it top priority."

  Tate didn't know who this was, but he could smell arm chair generals a mile away. "This is Rover Actual. Authenticate." He released the transmit button and waited.

  The radio hissed and nothing more.

  "I say again. Authenticate. Who is this?"

  The hiss was broken as the unknown voice replied. "Return to your designated extraction point for extraction."

  Tate bit back his flaring anger. Memories of calls for help while critical seconds ticked by, only to be given incompetent orders by some Powerpoint Ranger comfortably sitting behind a desk miles from the danger, flashed to his mind.

  "Negative! We have wounded and are pursued by hostiles. We need exfil right now."

  Tate glared at the radio, daring it to speak, but it only hissed.

  He tried to reach the helicopter, but whoever had cut into his transmission was jamming his radio.

  "What's that mean, boss?" asked Rosse.

  The muffled sound of one of Monkhouse's booby-traps boomed somewhere in the distance.

  "It means we move out," said Tate.

  Tate had taken point, and was moving at a pace he knew was pushing the limits of his team.

  Knowing she'd keep everyone moving, he set Wesson to bring up the rear. They'd been going hard and the jungle fought back just as hard, sucking their energy, grabbing at anything it could sang, clutching clothing and gear to slow them down.

  Behind him, someone vomited, and Tate knew it wouldn't be long before hi
s people started dropping from heat exhaustion. It was either that or stop and fight... and probably die.

  Trying to evade their pursuers wasn't working, and Tate decided it was time for a new plan. He came to a stop and the rest of the team halted in their tracks.

  Momentum had been the only thing keeping them on their feet, and the moment they stopped most of them sagged to the ground, not caring where they sat.

  Tate met up with Wesson to explain what he was planning. Her uniform was torn and filthy, and her face and arms were criss-crossed with dozens of fine cuts.

  He figured he didn't look much different.

  "Hell, Sergeant, you look like someone locked you in a sweat box with a pack of pissed off wildcats and rolled it down a mountain."

  A smile cracked Wesson's stoic expression. "It was only a small mountain," she said, then got back to business. "They don't have much left," she said, nodding towards the rest of the team.

  "We'll give them a few minutes to hydrate and then figure out our next move," said Tate, but he already knew there was nothing to figure out; they weren't going anywhere, and Wesson knew it, too.

  She looked at the jungle around her, half expecting to see their attackers emerge from the shadows. "Do you think they're still after us?"

  The team had heard Wesson, and Tate knew they were listening for his answer. Someone else might have chosen false comfort of a lie over grim honesty, but that wasn't Tate.

  As exhausted as they were, they'd buy into a lie if it meant they didn't have to move anymore. If there was any chance of survival, Tate needed everything the squad had left; he wouldn't get that with a lie.

  "You can count on it." Someone in the squad groaned. "I'm going to check out the surrounding area," said Tate. "Everyone stay quiet. Back in a few."

  Within ten meters, the team was lost to his view. Tate was looking for an area best suited for an ambush. He wasn't afraid of a fight, even a losing one, but if it came to that he wanted every possible advantage.

  He was making his way through the dense brush when he heard voices and froze. He slowly crouched, merging with the surrounding light and shadow. His thumb eased against the safety on his rifle, turning it to off, as he continued to listen.

  He quickly realized these weren't the operators hunting them. He only heard two voices, and there was a casual tone about them.

  The voices began to fade as they moved off.

  Staying in the cover of the jungle, Tate quietly tracked them.

  Soon he heard the unmistakable sound of flowing water; a lot of it.

  The voices had stopped moving, and he crept up to a break in the foliage to see what was happening.

  Two men were leaning against a tree by the bank of a narrow river.

  Their clothes were dirty and worn. One wore a sweat-stained, faded orange baseball cap, the other a straw cowboy hat with holes in it.

  A short distance from them was a pile of large burlap sacks, heaped up on a creaky-looking dock.

  Judging by the two neglected AK-668's propped against the sacks, neither man seemed concerned about security.

  There could only be one reason these men were out here, and Tate was sure it was because those sacks had coca leaves in them; it looked like the cocaine business wasn't going to be slowed down by something as minor as the near extinction of the human race.

  Tate wasn't interested in these two men, or their coca leaves. What had his full attention was the boat tied up at the end of the dock.

  After Tate discovered where these men were going he'd get his team; it looked like they were taking a boat, after all.

  After a few minutes, the two laborers left the dock; following a worn path, they disappeared out of view.

  Half a mile away was their pickup truck with the last of the harvested coca leaves. Transporting the leaves from the field to the field lab was boring work, but as they were regularly reminded by their pendejo boss, if they didn't like the job they could try their luck avoiding the undead and reach civilization.

  Following the fin del mundo, the Cartel lost its hold of the cocaine business and all out war broke out among the smaller drug bosses. It was a blood bath of drug lord wannabes, all grasping for as much territory as they could get.

  Things began to settle down after most of the challengers had been killed off; eventually, only a handful of rivals were left.

  Battered and depleted of forces, they settled for peace, agreeing to split up the territory in equal amounts.

  None of this mattered to the two laborers. They'd been doing this for fifteen years. Bosses came and went, but the job was always the same, until today.

  Each of them were glad to lay the last of their haul with the rest of the burlap sacks. Now they could take a break before loading up the boat and delivering them to the processing lab.

  Neither of them noticed their rifles were missing until a man emerged from the bushes with a weapon pointed at them.

  Tate looked over the sights of his rifle at the two men, whose expressions were almost comical. He guessed they were so relieved he wasn't a land-shark they didn't mind having a gun pointed at them.

  "Ingles?" asked Tate.

  Both nodded. "Si," said the one with the ball cap.

  "Good," said Tate. "What's your names?"

  "Mateo," said the one wearing the ball cap, pointing to himself, then pointed to the other man. "Hector."

  "Nice to meet you. Good news and bad news, guys. The good news is I'm not going to kill you. The bad news is I'm taking your boat," said Tate. "Sergeant Wesson, get everyone loaded up."

  The rest of the squad came out of the jungle and loaded into the boat, while Tate kept his eyes on the two men.

  "Where's your radio?" The cartel didn't care if anything happened to these two men, but it cared a lot about anything that threatened their business, so they made sure communications were readily available to everyone.

  "It's in our truck," said Mateo.

  "Here's what's going to happen," said Tate. "Do exactly what I say, you live. If you don't..."

  Tate nodded to Wesson, who brought up her machine gun.

  Both men’s eyes went wide with fear.

  "You two are going to head back to your truck and then use your radio to let me know you're there. I want to hear both of your voices. Once you do that, we'll leave."

  With Wesson aiming at both men, Tate handed Mateo a scrap of paper. "Here's my radio frequency."

  "Okay, no problem," said Mateo, quick to be as agreeable as he could; the sooner they didn't have guns pointed at them the better he'd like it. "There's extra gas in a can.”

  "Everyone load up in the boat," said Tate.

  Wesson and Cooper pushed the boat into the water, and the squad quickly got in, followed by Tate, who kept his eyes on the two Columbians.

  He saw the gas can and gave it a shake, satisfied by its heft and the sound of sloshing inside.

  "All right guys,” said Tate to the two laborers. "Time for you to go. Don't forget, I'll be waiting to hear from you on the radio. Don't make me come looking for you."

  The two men backed away with all the caution of withdrawing from a coiled viper, not wanting to make any sudden movement that could get them shot.

  Hector broke first, turning and running out of view, with Mateo following close behind.

  Tate started the engine and pushed the throttle half way up. The boat looked like junk, but the engine was strong and responsive.

  They'd gone a couple hundred yards up-river when his radio crackled and came alive with somebody franticly chattering in Spanish.

  "Luis, this is Mateo. A bunch of American soldiers just took our boat. They got lots of guns. If you hurry you can catch them. Bring everyone! Let’s kill those assholes."

  Tate pushed the throttle all the way up, and the boat quickly picked up speed. He couldn't help but smile as he keyed up his radio.

  "Mateo, is that you?" There was a long pause, then a very anxious Mateo answered.

  "Uh... si?"


  "In all the confusion I forgot to tell you one of my people found your truck. I thought in all the excitement you might forget you were supposed to radio me, so they switched your radio frequency for you."

  This wasn't Tate's first rodeo; he knew these guys would turn on him at the first chance they got.

  He needed time to put as much distance between him and the Columbians as he could, and keeping them off balance would buy him valuable time.

  "If I see Luis I'll be sure to tell him how helpful you've been to me."

  "No, no, no," stammered Mateo. "I'm sorry. I have a family. They'll kill all of us."

  "Put Hector on," said Tate.

  "Hello?" said Hector.

  Tate was satisfied that neither man had stayed behind to watch which direction he'd taken the boat.

  "Listen very carefully to me, because there's two very important things you need to know, all right?"

  All he got in response was a very worried, "Si."

  "The first thing is I left your guns in the bushes behind the sacks of coca leaves."

  "You left the guns?" asked Hector.

  Tate could hear Hector repeat what he said to Mateo.

  "Why would you do that?"

  "Because of the second very important thing. There's a group of very pissed off soldiers coming your way," said Tate.

  "More Americans?" asked Hector, with renewed worry.

  "No, not Americans," said Tate. "We got reports someone is killing off the drug lords and taking over their operations. We were on patrol when we got ambushed by them. They're coming for your boss, so you should probably call for more men."

  "Si! I mean yes," said Hector. "Uh... thank you for the warning, señor."

  "Good luck, guys." Tate put down his radio and caught Wesson looking at him with a mixture of concern and confusion.

  "What is it, Sergeant?"

  "Those guys after us aren't interested in drug lords. They want the intel we took from the villa."

  Tate smiled at her. "They lie. I lie."

  * * *

  Using his map, Tate navigated the several tributaries that branched off from the river to their exfil without incident.