Sway's Demise (6 page)

“How many?” He sat up, buttoning his shirt.

“Last look, one.” She crawled back to the entrance, whispering to Eli, “Any changes?”

“They’re just poking around, being real obvious like. I have a gut feeling we’ve got a few of them lingering.” He kept his sights on the visible target while Sway took a second look at the surrounding area. Carefully scanning the ground revealed a hidden target in the grass. They were well camouflaged, and moving slowly, but definitely closing in.

They had cleaned up their campsite well, yet, stupidly, their footsteps in the sand lead directly to the caves. She knew Xander had another motive for it than just exhaustion.

She leaned into Eli, “We’ve got a second target at one thirty, one hundred eighty meters and closing in. In the grass below the grouping of five trees. Do you see him?”

He turned the gun slowly. “I’ve got him.”

“They definitely know we’re in this area,” she whispered, continuing her search of the grass. “Seems to be just these two right now, but I bet a third and fourth are further to the east.”

Eli’s finger massaged the trigger. “Silencer should dampen it enough to prevent the enemy from locating us right away. Should I take the shot?” he asked to Xander.

“Hold on engagement. Let’s wake Leandra to get the forest tromper in her sights.” Xander disappeared, and Leandra crept up beside Sway with her M99, loading a round into the chamber.

Richard centered his scope on the idiot bumbling around through the trees and whispered, “Two ten meters, forty degrees southwest.”

“Got him.” Leandra’s elbow pushed into the sand for support.

Xander whispered, “Fire when ready.”

Sway leaned closer to Eli. “One hundred seventy meters. Wind, seven kilometers an hour at fifteen degrees.”

“Check.” He responded by inching the gun out to the right, then back into the left until he had it corrected.

Leandra whispered, “Ready.”

Sway gave the countdown, “Three, two, one, fire.”

Both snipers fired in unison, Leandra’s fifty caliber rifle announcing their presence. Sway watched Eli’s rubber bullet bounce directly off the man’s head. “Perfect hit. Target two eliminated.”

A loud yelp was heard as the man walking in the forest fell back. “Target one eliminated, and likely bruised. I feel bad for anyone on the receiving end of that monster.” Richard chuckled. Eli and Sway’s target stood, rubbing under his helmet as he held a red cloth overhead. She retrieved Eli’s brass, stuffing it in her breast pocket.

Xander commended them, “Great shots, team, but we’ve just flagged our location without carefully checking for additional targets.” So there were more, Sway thought with agitation.

“Eli and I can scout the perimeter,” she offered, stuffing the scope into her pouch.

“There you go with your balls again, Sway.” Xander looked back to Reese and River, fully awake from the gunfire and getting prepared for combat.

“River, Reese, Eli, Sway, walk the perimeter for any more combatants,” Xander ordered.

Leandra rubbed her eyes, “Sir, can we be sure they were actually combatants? What if they were just civies?”

Sway took the opportunity to respond for him, “The man in the grass was carrying a DMR, closing in on us. He was not a friendly. The man in the forest was an obvious play to get us to reveal ourselves–”

“Which we did,” Eli interrupted

“If we’re right, and there are two more wandering about, we can be sure if we interrogate them.”

Xander grinned. “Maybe there are brains in there, too. Go find me some hostiles, team, and since Sway offered, bring at least one of them back alive.”

“Sir.” They nodded, peeking out of the cave. Reese and Sway covered all directions with their shorter range weapons.

“Clear.” She nodded for Eli and River to follow. They formed up into a diamond, Eli taking the rear with his beretta and a hand on Sway’s shoulder.

They followed the sandy bed, sticking to shadows and tree line for cover. River came to a quick stop, kneeling, and they all followed suit.

She whispered into her sleeve, “Eli, looks like another one, three hundred meters.”

“Rubber bullets won’t be accurate at that range, I need to get in closer.” He pulled the L96 from his back, sighting in the target. “I see ‘em.”

Reese cautioned, “His partner must be flanking us.”

Sway pulled her scope from its pouch, combing the horizon. The rustling leaves cast shadows everywhere, making detection near impossible. “Perhaps I put us a bit out of our league.”

River scoffed, “We’ve got this.”

“If we can see him, he can definitely see the four of us. They have coms, and we don’t.”

River looked away, frustrated.

“We could be in serious trouble right now. Eli, I say don’t take the shot and risk exposing us. We head back east, but not to the cave. Hunker down in some cover for a bit, wait for the other to come in for us and capture him.”

Eli nodded, “I agree.”

“Sounds like a better plan than crouching in what little cover we have here,” Reese affirmed.

“Alright,” River admirably ignored her embarrassment for the sake of teamwork, “let’s head back.”

They proceeded toward the cave, finding some nice boulders with shrubs about twenty meters north. As predicted, the man in the brush slowly crept into their vicinity. It was smart not to have gotten closer, Sway knew, as they would have entered his range as well. He must have thought they went back to camp though, or else why would he risk coming in?

“One hundred twelve meters,” Sway hushed into her hand, the early morning air chilling her nose.

River tapped her, “Second target in sight.”

“How close?” Sway pocketed the scope, shouldering her M4.

“Maybe fifty meters, through the trees.”

Sway whispered, “Eli, don’t take the shot yet. Reese and I are going to go take this guy. Fire in seventy seconds.”

River’s face mushed together in obvious frustration, but she was silent. Sway was taking River’s kill, she realized, but the excitement was too great to let someone as poor in close quarters as Delilah to mess it up, and no one countered her plan, so off they went.

With decent speed, Sway and Reese quietly crawled through the dirt, avoiding fallen leaves and twigs. The Beacon member must have noticed them, but was allowing it simply because most other combatants wouldn’t be as well trained as he was. When they were ten meters away, Eli fired. The man’s eyes snapped towards the boulder, gun raised.

Reese and Sway stood simultaneously, their barrels aimed at his chest. “Toss your weapon and raise your hands,” Reese spoke softly. When he turned, Sway’s instinct kicked in and she fired at his shoulder. The shot bounced off, and he howled, releasing his gun.

Reese glared at her and she shrugged. “It wasn’t a lethal shot, he’s just bleeding profusely. If we interrogate him quickly, he’ll live long enough to spill it.”

They pulled Henderson, the shot man, into their custody, and he role-played all the way back to camp. Stumbling, shouting, to which they quickly stuffed his mouth with a handkerchief, and frequently going limp. After several attempts to take their weapons, they tied his hands behind his back as well.

Xander smiled as they plopped Henderson down in the cave, “Well done, privates. Now, what do we do with him?”

Reese helped Henderson sit up. “He’s bleeding out from his right shoulder, if we intend to keep him alive after questioning him, I’d advise patching up the gunshot first.”

Leandra shook her head. “We don’t have the resources to keep him with us, nor the time to take him back to Kamloops. The ROI is not there in my opinion.” She slung her M99. “I say we interrogate him, and no matter the intel he provides, or doesn’t, put him out of his misery.”

Xander nodded, “Harsh, but efficient. What do you think, Fabel?”

“I’m not particularly keen on executing him, and setting him loose is not an option.” Fabel chewed on his lower lip, worried.

Richard circled up with the rest of the cell, “We’re eight man teams for a reason, right? Why don’t four of us hold position here, and four take him back into Kamloops?”

Eli disagreed, “No, what if the cave group was forced to move? We’d be separated. It’s not the hottest plan.”

“We’re burning precious minutes as this man bleeds to death, team. Let’s come around to a decision.” Xander reminded them of the ticking clock Sway had set in motion with the pull of a trigger.

Reese pulled the handkerchief from Henderson’s mouth, “Who are you with and what are you doing in this territory?” Henderson glared, mouth clamped shut.

Eli poked the end of his L96 to Henderson’s faux damaged shoulder, thought it
was
likely bruised, and he role-played again, pretending to be in agony. “Tell us what you know and we’ll bring you back to our town. Refuse and die here in this cave.”

Sway had never seen the ruthless side of Eli. Where had he been hiding it, she wondered? Perhaps it was easy when they knew it was just a game. What happened when it was real? What happened when one of them had to pull the trigger and take a life?

“You can go sit on a pinecone,” Henderson spat at Eli. Sway jammed the butt of her M4 into his gut, knocking him to the ground.

Stepping on his fingers, he winced in actual pain, for which she felt a little bad. “Spill it or I spill your brains.” Her M4 barrel aimed just aside of his face, in case she accidentally fired. A rubber bullet to the skull at that distance would definitely kill him.

He leered, “We’re going to rape you, and your mommies, and kill your papas. Then we’ll rape your little sisters, and take your little brothers to fight for us.” The talk unnerved the young squad, but they remembered it was just a game. How would they react if a real enemy said that to them? She knew she would execute him, right then and there.

River pulled her glock on him, “We don’t need his intel, and getting him to divulge may take more effort than it’s really worth. All in favor of execution?”

Sway was the first to respond, “Aye.” The rest chimed in with her, except Fabel.

“What’s the holdup, Frederick?” Xander asked.

“Is this really what we’re like? Are we this merciless? We didn’t even give him a chance.”

Leandra patted his shoulder. “We won’t always make the right decision, but we have
to make one. We’re losing morning, he’s bleeding out, and unwilling to communicate. We don’t have the resources to carry him around with us for the next six days, it’s not the best idea to separate and drop him off at the community, and without medical attention in the next thirty minutes, he’ll be dead anyway.”

Sway had a sudden epiphany, like a light turning on in her mind. “Wait,” she pulled her gun off Henderson and shoved the handkerchief back in his mouth, requesting the map from Fabel. Spreading it out, she pointed to the locations he’d marked in the dim light from the moon. The campfire, the two enemy combatants to the south, and then she eyeballed the positions of the others.

Leandra and Richard crowded around her as she spoke, “We caught Henderson to the northeast, and he’d been coming in from the east, it didn’t look like he’d circled around. We killed one target to the northwest, hit one to the southwest, and one who was almost directly south.”

“You think they surrounded us?” Leandra pulled her gun to her chest.

Richard mumbled, “If so, they should be on us already.”

As if divined, the camouflaged entrance to the cave ignited in flame, pushing bellows of smoke in towards them.

They all dropped to a knee, guns trained at the opening. They waited as the fire died out, the plumes of smoke clouding their vision. Eli grabbed Henderson by the vest and picked him up, walking him to the smoldering entrance. He looked back to the others, pointing to positions at the mouth of the cave.

River stood at the west side of the entrance, and Fabel the east, ready to spring. They’d have a fraction of a second to pull it off, and if they failed—then what? Suspended? Pulled off combat forever? They had to make a decision, before the enemy stormed the cave with guns blazing.

Eli shoved Henderson out into the sand, and in response, they heard the sound of two rifles firing rubber bullets. River and Fabel were out just as fast, followed by Reese and Sway. They fired on the ridge in controlled bursts, knowing the ammunition was precious and the brass could only be reloaded so many times.

Sway spied her target quickly, launching a three shot burst directly at her helmet. They plinked off with a satisfying sound of success, and she raised her red cloth overhead.

Five seconds was all it took. It wasn’t the cleanest, or the smartest, but they got it done and none of them were hurt—except Henderson. He coughed several times, having taken the brunt of the bullets to his gut. He’d definitely be bruised now.

Xander commended them again as he untied Henderson. “I see we decided to use balls this time around. Well executed, but risky, and now our informant is dead.” Well, he sort of commended them.

Henderson started to rise, red cloth tucked into his helmet and Sway pushed him back down with a leer. “Where are you going?”