Direct Action - 03 (39 page)

“Yeah, down in Basra. The Operator lost his fucking mind and started murdering civilians during operations, killing them and torturing them in the worst kinds of ways. He was a senior-ranking guy and couldn't be reined in, but everyone avoided going outside the wire with him.”

“Sounds like he is the right man for the job,” Bill said approvingly. “Is that all?”

“That and the steroids, but I guess that goes without saying.”

The Operator was now three quarters of the way to the technical with the ZPU machine gun mounted on it. He high-crawled silently, sticking to the shadows.

“Besides,” Bill said. “This is all I could get on short notice.”

“Did you check the personal ads in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazine?”

“I put it out over the secret squirrel net and this was the first experienced guy that could be on a plane in a few hours. I tried my guys from Dev, but they are all mixed up in this South America deal.”

“Training Colombia's Counter-Terrorist unit?”

“Way better,” Bill said as they watched The Operator slowly crawl towards the technical. A Green Mountain militia man was leaning against the back of the truck smoking a cigarette. Two others stood near the truck smoking and joking with each other.

“A couple of our boys got out of the Navy and went to work with the real pirates, those fucks on Wall Street. Once these large brokerage firms saw SEAL Team Six on their resumes, they got earmarked to go straight to the top. Every one of those yuppies wants a Bin Laden killer on their staff just for bragging rights.

“So my guys, Alek and Stew, they get a line on some investments off the coast of Colombia and Venezuela. They buy in low, then convince the top guys at these brokerage firms to buy in as well. The reason why it is so low to invest is because the company is underwater, financially speaking, so Alek and Stew round up the boys and do some extracurricular activity putting the competition underwater literally.”

“The ultimate insider trading.”

“Who is better at underwater demolition than we are? Fly them down there on Teeny Weeny,
sabotage the competing oil company's hardware, and get back home in time for hot sandwiches. All the
evidence is at the bottom of the ocean. Who is going to go down there and do forensics and link it back
to Alek and Stew?”

“These guys are contractors like we are?”

“Some. Others are just active-duty operators on leave from Dam Neck.”

“Holy shit.”

“Hey, here we go,” Bill said as he started turkey-necking towards the objective. “Our boy is ready to go.”

Deckard looked over in time to see The Operator stand up and stay low as he moved forward. He got the first Libyan in a choke hold before dragging him behind the technical and breaking his neck. Leaving the body concealed behind the truck, The Operator crouched down and moved along the tailgate, inching closer to the two militia men who were talking to each other.

Everyone knew about The Operator. He had been a Golden Gloves semi-pro boxer at one point. Practiced Thai kickboxing at a gym in Fayetteville for years. Then, his skills had been further refined. There was an old school Special Forces soldier who could be contacted for private lessons, provided you had been vetted and knew what number to call. He was one of those scary dudes who did work from Laos to Nicaragua. Specialized in silent takedowns of sentries and other esoteric skills.

Deckard had heard the stories, but now he would see it for himself.

Breaking from cover, The Operator confronted the two militia men.

His boot was a blur of motion that connected with the closest Libyan's temple. The Muay Thai kick sent the militia man spinning. He collapsed against the side of the truck and then crumpled to the ground. The second militia man went for the pistol on his hip but never made it. The Operator, moved and a second later his opponent had an ear torn off and one of his eyes gouged. Before the Libyan could even feel the pain, The Operator finished him off with a vicious right hook, dropping him.

“What do you think?” Bill asked.

“Someone has studied the martial art of ripping and tearing. Not something they teach at the Special Operations Combatives Program.”

“No, it isn't.”

The Operator was looking over the ZPU-2 heavy machine gun on the back of the pickup when two more Libyans came walking out of the nearest bunker on a security patrol. They glanced over at the technical.

The MP-X sub-machine gun materialized in The Operator's hands as he popped into a perfect shooting stance. The sub-gun burped out two stunted bursts through the suppressor with hardly a gap between each trigger squeeze. Both of the militiamen went down with bursts placed center mass in their chests.

Without missing a beat, The Operator climbed on to the back of the pickup truck and sat down on the thin metal seat behind the twin barreled ZPU-2 Anti-Aircraft gun. Spinning the traverse and elevation wheels on the weapon system, he used the metal bullseye sight on the gun to aim at a group of Green Mountain militiamen a hundred and fifty meters away near another bunker.

With the sites aligned on target, The Operator set his size 11.5 desert boot down on the foot peddle which acted as the trigger for the firing mechanism.

The,n the night lit up with orange flame from the twin-barreled weapon. The 14.5mm rounds went downrange to devastating effect. Flesh was separated from bone as red ribbons shot into the air. Then, the bullets churned into the concrete surface of the arms depot and kicked up a thick gray dust.

Spinning the traverse wheel, The Operator walked his gunfire into another technical on the other side of the bunker complex. Sparks blasted around the pickup like angry fireflies and in seconds it was reduced to scrap metal.

“Let's go,” Bill said as he stood up.

Deckard ran forward with a dozen of Yezza's fighters. Several of them began firing their AK-47's at absolutely nothing as they jogged towards the closest bunker. Deckard yelled at them in Arabic
to hold their fire.

“
Kif! Kif,
you assholes!”

They took cover next to the heavy steel doors of the bunker just as The Operator abandoned the ZPU-2. He had burned through the entire box of ammunition. Reaching down, he recovered an FN FAL rifle from one of the militia men he had killed with his hands and feet before joining them at the bunker.

A few pop shots still echoed throughout the arms depot. Someone shouted in Arabic.

Bill looked back to The Operator.

“Go take care of that while we secure the package.”

“Roger that.”

The Operator turned and ran into the night.

“I like him,” Bill said with a smile.

“Suffice to say that I have my reservations,” Deckard said dryly.

“Don't worry. He'll be dead after a mission or two and we'll just hire someone new.”

By now, Yezza had come waddling over the ridge and made his way towards them.

“What did I tell you!” Yezza shouted to Bill. “Did my fighters not fight bravely in the re-capturing of my bunkers?”

“Oh, yeah,” Bill confirmed. “Every one of them is a hero.”

This made Yezza smile.

“Now do me a favor and show me which bunker has our stuff in it.”

“Come with me,” Yezza said. He was panting, out of breath from his arduous journey from their trucks.

The Libyan arms dealer led them across the way to another bunker. Off in the distance, they heard Kalashnikov fire. The heavier 7.62x51 FN FAL rounds answered back. As they approached the bunker, Deckard thought he heard the rapid fire of a pistol, probably God's gun, the 1911 doing its thing.

The sliding door was secured with nothing more than a bicycle chain and a padlock. Bill shot the lock off and Yezza ordered his men to slide open the steel door. With no small degree of bitching and moaning about it, the Libyans man handled the bunker door open.

Bill clicked on a Surefire flashlight he had brought along and used the light to cut through the darkness inside. There were metal racks loaded with conventional dumb bombs that could be dropped from airplanes. There were wooden crates, some empty, some full. As they walked inside, Deckard could also see 130mm artillery rounds stacked against one wall.

Their footsteps made hallow echoes inside the bunker. Everything was covered in dust. Deckard used his own pen light to find his way.

“Bingo,” Bill said from deeper in the bunker. “Come over here.”

Deckard joined Bill to see what he was looking at.

“Know what that is?”

From the tail fins and markings Deckard made a determination.

“Russian dumb bombs,” he said as he looked over the long green bombs in the metal rack. “The mounting lugs on the sides mean they are designed to be dropped from an aircraft.”

“And the payload.”

Deckard noted the yellow band around each of the bombs in the rack.

“I'm not sure.”

“Inside is a small tube that acts as a burster when the nose fuse is touched off on impact. Packed around the burster are a series of larger tubes which can hold up thirty liters.”

“Thirty liters of what?” Deckard asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

“Each one of these puppies is a giant mustard dispenser, and not the kind you find at a hot dog stand.”

Deckard clenched his teeth. It was nasty stuff. When deployed against humans, the gas acted as a blister agent against any exposed skin and in the lungs when inhaled. The first and second degree burns the gas caused could take up to a week to kill those who were exposed. The chemical warfare agent had killed thousands of troops during the first world war.

Yezza barged in between them, looking at the bombs that Bill had found.

“This is what you are looking for my friend?”

“It sure is,” Bill said, clapping Yezza on the shoulder. “Have your boys load two up on the trucks. You can sell the rest to the CIA for destruction.”

“And a big fat security contract.”

“And a big fat security contract,” Bill confirmed. “C'mon Deckard. Let's go flip the off switch on our pal outside before he fights all the way to Tehran.”

“Good idea.”

Bill brushed passed them and walked toward the exit.

“Gotta get back to the home station so I can get comms with higher and find out the rest of the game plan.”

Deckard followed behind him, his rifle held by the pistol grip at his side.

“Then what?”

“We got a war waiting for us in Syria, that's what.”

29

The two chemical weapons, along with a cache of guns went on a plane from Benghazi, Libya
to
Antakya
, Turk
ey while Bill, Deckard, and The Operator got on another plane back to Mauritius. Bill needed to get his high-side access on the Pirate Net in his office before continuing on to whatever their final objective was in Syria.

Once plugged into his secure commo system, Bill got the rest of the Operations Order from their client and called a team pow wow in his bungalow. Nadeesha had been playing with Deckard in the shower when they got the call. Getting dressed, they walked over to Bill's place in intervals. Nadi still didn't want anyone to know even though Deckard was pretty sure that everyone noticed when she looked at him with those bedroom eyes.

Once they had gathered around, Bill gave them the low down. Rick sat on the couch, hung over from the party the previous night. Nadeesha sat on a chair in the corner of the room with her back to the wall. Paul sat down on a stool next to the billiard table next to Ramon. The Operator stood towards the back with his arms crossed.

“We will link up with Yezza's people in Turkey and take possession of the device. Because of the amount of road blocks and choke points that both the rebels and the Syrian military have established, we are going to have to parachute in behind enemy lines and link up with the locals. We are going to handle the dispersal of the mustard gas, but these clowns will be acting as bullet traps for us on the way into the target area.”

“Who are these guys?” Ramon asked. “The Free Syrian Army?”

“It gets better,” Bill insisted. “Al-Nusra.”

“Fuck me,” Ramon snorted.

“Who else is crazy enough to launch a chemical attack on this target?”

“Wait, what's the fucking target?”

“I just got it from the client. The target is the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.”

“Holy shit,” Deckard whispered.

“What the fuck is that?” Rick said.

“Yeah, what's the big fucking deal with some mosque? These people blow their own holy sites up all the time,” Paul said.

“Not like this,” Deckard said. “Shia Muslims consider this mosque to be maybe the fourth most holy site in the world. It is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. If it goes up in a cloud of poison gas that gets blamed on the Sunni Al-Nusra extremists, it will cause a sectarian shit storm that will engulf the entire region.”