ASSET - an Action Thriller: a Brill Winger Thriller

by Chris Lowry

  Brill made the circle once more, and again.

  "Two more!" Becker shouted.

  Brill didn't move his head. Didn't wave a finger or even acknowledge he had heard.

  His feet were barely coming off the ground, digging small ruts in the top layers of the dirt track as he moved.

  His breath wheezed in and out, small grunts of effort punctuating every exhale.

  He kept going.

  One lap left. He couldn't see. Sweat poured off of his head and stung his eyes, the mud from the earlier fall crusting closed one lid. His shoulders had stopped hurting, the numbness spreading from the base of his skull all the way to his knees, which burned with the effort.

  The pack wasn't moving though. The rolling motion that had threatened to knock him to the ground so many times earlier was gone.

  He didn't have enough speed to make it happen.

  A hundred yards shy of where he stared, Brill fell again and didn't move.

  Becker glanced at Simon. The leader of the mercenary force gave a small shake of his head, barely qualifying as a movement and stared at the quivering lump of human on the dirt track.

  Becker crossed his arms and watched.

  Brill's right hand extended forward when he fell. The fingers clawed at the dirt, scratching furrows next to the footsteps he had marked earlier.

  They waited.

  But he didn't move.

  "Get him," Simon said in a low voice.

  Becker could hear the disappointment in his voice.

  "Nine times," he offered.

  Simon raised his eyebrows.

  "We only do five."

  "We do," Becker agreed. "He doesn't."

  Simon smirked.

  "You break him, he goes home."

  Becker shrugged and motioned to the camp.

  "He's not ready for this."

  Simon nodded.

  "Send him back."

  They turned toward Brill and started marching in step to pick him up off the ground.

  And stopped.

  The boy was crawling.

  Exhausted limbs crept forward, one arm up, opposite leg, then repeating on the other side.

  Blazing eyes fixed on the finish line, the spot where Becker made him start.

  He didn't growl, scream or make a sound as he kept moving. Just dragged himself across the hard track for one hundred yards while the two men watched him go.

  He reached the finish and collapsed, breath puffing in and out, making the pack rise and fall. Brill pushed up off the ground, and rolled sideways, using the weight of the pack to sit up in an awkward sprawl.

  His fingers twitched on his left hand, dirt turned to mud streaked his face and clothes, crusting him with a fine layer of grime.

  Becker glanced over at Simon and gave a satisfied nod.

  "Not yet," he said and went to offer his hand to the boy to help him get up.

  CHAPTER

  “Where is he?” Shelby Johnson paced the wall of windows in his DC office.

  The floor to ceiling view gave him direct sight to the Capital and the buildings surrounding the National Mall. He could see people touring the monuments, eating lunch, and gaping at the stone markers of history that stretched on the six acre complex.

  They were oblivious he thought. None of them aware of just how precarious their freedom was, nor the cost that was required to maintain it.

  The Senator grunted as he heard the man shift behind him.

  “We don’t know,” Dickey answered.

  Theodore Dickey was a law clerk from his home state, doing a short stint as an intern. Shelby was returning a favor to his father.

  He rounded on the tall thin man with boyish features, a mop of brown hair drifting over his tortoise shell glasses.

  “Find him,” he took a deep breath and let it out.

  “What happened?” he held up a hand to keep Ted in the office.

  Ted let out a sigh.

  “According to the father, he was working at a refugee camp that was overrun by rebels. The daughter is missing too.”

  “Who is he talking to?”

  “The Dad?” squeaked Ted. “We had an intercept on the landlines.”

  He passed a sealed manila envelope to Shelby.

  “These are the actual transcripts.

  The old man nodded and tore into the envelope. He spilled eight sheets of white paper in his palm, let his eyes skim over the dot matrix type.

  “That will be all, Ted,” he dismissed the intern.

  Ted backed toward the door and didn’t turn around until he felt the handle in his hand.

  “And Ted?”

  “Sir?”

  “Let’s just keep this between us.”

  Shelby glanced up over the sheaf of papers and gazed at Ted with a blank expression on his face.

  The intern licked his lips and nodded, the movement making his hair flop back and forth on his head.

  Shelby waited for the door to close behind him, then turned to the window to read the report.

  CHAPTER

  He hit the obstacle course next.

  The liquid diet kept him from doing too much.

  He couldn't run fast.

  So he focused on steady.

  He couldn't do a pull up yet, so he focused on hanging.

  Anything he could to control his body and rebuild it.

  Train it. He would grab a bar and hang for as long as he could, then release.

  Brill rested for a few minutes then did it again.

  All the while Becker watched him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Brill wrapped his hand around the butt of the pistol and rested the weight in the other hand.

  He held it straight out, arm slightly bent to form a triangle and cocked his head to line his eye up with the sights.

  “Use your chin,” Becker instructed.

  Brill did as he was told and pulled the gun back toward his face. He pressed his chin against the gun and lined up the sight.

  Becker laughed.

  “Didn't your mother tell you you'd put your eye out like that?”

  He reached out and gently extended the arms again, forming a triangle. He lowered the gun so that the sight was lined up with the chin.

  “Practice this move until it's second nature,” he said. “Move your arms from different positions until this becomes a natural pose. Use both hands. It sounds silly but aim with your chin.”

  He stood back and pulled his own pistol, aimed and fired off six rounds.

  The silhouette etched onto the bark splintered in a tight grouping.

  “Now you,” he said.

  Brill turned his chin toward the target, squeezed the trigger.

  The .45 bucked in his hand and would have slammed into his forehead if Becker hadn't pulled it away from his chin.

  “Try again, steady and breath.”

  Brill assumed the stance and pulled again. He hit the target, just above the head.

  “Better. Concentrate. Look at the head, and the pistol goes where you look.”

  Brill pulled the trigger and a dot opened on the forehead.

  “Nice shooting,” said Simon from behind him.

  “I got him,” Brill smiled.

  “Don't get cocky kid,” smirked Becker. “Again.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  They let him rest after two hours. The jungle heat was sweltering and sweat covered his entire body, dripping into his eyes.

  “Get some water,” Simon instructed him and watched as Brill jogged to the far side of camp.

  “What do you think?” he asked Becker.

  “Kintsugi.”

  Simon nodded and studied the boy as he sipped water from a jug.

  “Highlight the imperfection. You gonna teach him wabi sabi?”

  “If he'll take it. Would you have listened at eighteen?”

  Simon laughed.

  “Hell no. I was hellbent on Recce though, and I thought you needed to be perfect for that.”

  “He w
on't make a great soldier,” Becker said. “But he'll be a damn fine warrior.”

  “Even broken?”

  “Yeah I reckon. Kintsugi. He's damaged. We fill that imperfection up with gold and he's good to go.”

  “What about diamonds?”

  Becker glanced askance at Simon.

  “Can't break diamonds.”

  “We got word that the MPLA survivors are holed up at a diamond mine.”

  “He's going with us?”

  “He wants to. Can you keep him safe?”

  “Let me see the layout and I'll let you know.”

  “It's a fort. One road in and out. They'll be watching.”

  “We get recon photo's?”

  “Coming,” Simon said.

  He nodded toward Brill as the boy jogged back to them.

  “Get him ready.”

  Simon marched to his command tent to prepare for the raid discussion as Brill made it back to the range.

  “Let's get to it,” said Becker. “Ever heard of wabi sabi?”

  “Put it on sushi,” Brill said as he lined up the target.

  “Wasabi,” corrected Becker with a laugh. “Let me tell you about wabi sabi.”

  CHAPTER

  If this got out it would ruin his reputation. He didn’t care. He was ruined anyway.

  Van Housen sat in a chair in the office he had at home and stared at a set of 8 x 10 glossy photographs spread out on the glass table top.

  It had cost him a dozen favors to get these pictures, reconissance photos of a rebel encampment just over the Angolan border. The information that came with them was worse.

  The rebels were streaming in with the refugees, posing as the displaced victims. They would steal food, water, medicine and provide intelligence back to the encampment. Van Housen had been the one to push for open borders, for helping the embattled peoples just north of South Africa. He had legislated in the men who killed his daughter.

  His eyes leaked tears onto the sleeve of his dirty shirt as he stared at the pictures.

  His fault.

  Van Housen didn't know when Executive Options would make their move. Only what it had cost him to get the intelligence to them.

  He stared at the picture in the center of the table, unable to make out details due to the blurriness caused by the water in his eyes.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Command Tent was crowded with squad leaders.

  Brill wasn't sure of the command structure, only that Simon was the leader and Becker was someone of importance as well.

  There were ten other men in the room, each in charge of six or eight man squads.

  They were dressed in black BDU's and were quiet and expectant displaying military discipline as they sat waiting for Simon to began.

  Simon stood and unrolled a topography map across the table.

  It showed an area of Angola called Cataco, a tiny village perched next to a giant hole gouged into the earth.

  The village was a collection of huts surrounding several trailers several hundred yards from the pit.

  "Alright," said Simon and the men sat straighter in their camp chairs.

  "We did some aerial recon yesterday, and got intel that the MPLA we missed in the raid have holed up with sympathizers at the Cataco Diamond mine. We don't know how long they're going to stay, but if they have friendlies supporting them there they're going to get diamonds to keep funding their efforts. Our benefactor hired us to rescue his daughter,"

  Simon glanced at Brill who stood quietly in the corner where Becker placed him.

  "His next contract calls for their termination. All of them."

  Becker moved up to the map and traced his fingers along a route.

  "We can chopper into the River here. Looks like it's five kilometers or so to the village. We're going through bush so we don't encounter locals who can give them the heads up. Do we have a count?"

  "Two companies, plus local support. The mine will have guards as well."

  "So we're all in," said Becker.

  "We take in a platoon, hold the second in reserve," answered Simon. "Recon will have to determine the location of the rebel forces and we'll have to move fast."

  "At least they're not in the pit."

  The pit was exactly how it sounded. A hole dug into the earth both deep and wide.

  It was formed in levels as the soil was sieved through mesh screens and workers sorted out the gems that would be sold and polished into the most precious rocks in the world.

  Each level was roughly twelve feet, and the pit extended two hundred feet into the ground.

  Dirt roads swirled down around the edge of the pit walls in a narrow spiral that leveled off at the bottom of the hole.

  "There are several crews working in the pit," Simon added. "If the locals join in, we're facing overwhelming numbers."

  "How many?"

  "A thousand, maybe more. You have the diamond miners, but I don't expect them to join in either side. Overseers and managers are armed, plus a guard force itself tasked with protecting the mine. There is a building crew making the roads, plus support personnel."

  "Most of them will run," said Becker.

  "Unless they're sympathetic."

  "Unarmed."

  "We don't dismiss the threat."

  Becker nodded.

  "One squad for crowd control, the rest of the men to close out the contract. A platoon in reserve as a contingency."

  Simon pointed at where the river bisected a small road on the map. It crossed over a low water dam, a series of rocks dropped into the water over time to make a shallow water crossing.

  "Our intel is a day old," he said. "So we're wheels up at two am. I want us on the ground and in position before first light."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  "Is he ready?"

  "Hell no," said Becker.

  He and Simon leaned over the map and pretended to review the plan after the rest of the squad leaders departed to prepare the men.

  "Leave him," Simon ordered.

  "Ay," Becker nodded. "That'd be a good idea except we made him a promise."

  "He'll put the mission at risk."

  "Nah, I'll watch him."

  "You can't watch him and lead the ground assault."

  "I can and I will," Becker said. "I'll just use Arnoux on point."

  Simon moved away from the table and settled into his chair. He reached over and flipped open the top to a foot locker and extracted a fifth of whiskey and two crystal tumblers from velvet padded cubby holders. He held the glasses in two fingers and unscrewed the top with the other hand so he could pour triple splashes into each cup.

  He held them out for Becker to take one.

  They toasted.

  "There's something about this kid," Becker studied the bottom of his glass.

  "Fire."

  "And more. When I was in the States, they called it grit. He won't give up."

  "But he's not ready."

  "No."

  Becker pulled one of the camp chairs over and sat across from Simon.

  "It's easy for us to forget all of the training we went through to reach this point. This is our life, our lives. He's a natural shot, very comfortable with weapons and he's eager to learn, but no military training."

  "So, we leave him."

  "I can't," said Becker. "If it happened to me, I'd need to put a bullet into the head of the man who did it. I can't take that from him."

  "If he compromises our contract, we can't collect," Simon leaned up and counted off on his fingers. "He could get killed, he could get one of our men killed, he could get you killed, or all three."

  "I'll keep him under wing," Becker answered.

  "Back of the formation."

  "Yes Sir."

  "If he screws this up for us, I'm killing him myself."

  Becker nodded.

  "If he screws it up, I'll save you the trouble."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN