Target Deck - 02 (44 page)

After the mercenaries got up on the rooftops, those down below quickly learned to stay out of the courtyard. Getting down on a knee behind the concrete banister, his eyes narrowed as he scanned the cloisters at the other side of the courtyard. It was almost too easy. Shouldering his AK, Deckard began firing into the shadows under the vaulted ceilings at the other end of the courtyard.

The amount of gunfire that replied back was nothing short of unreal. Deckard ducked down behind the banister followed by the other mercenaries. The cartel gunmen had been lying in wait. The decorative sculptures between the banister and the stone floor left a lot of openings, forcing Deckard to roll laterally to change his position as enemy gunfire focused on his position and collided with the space he had occupied a moment ago.

Sighting in, he burned through the thirty round magazine in his Kalashnikov in seconds as he fired a burst at every silhouette or muzzle flash that presented itself. Rocking the empty magazine forward, he tossed it aside and rolled again while reaching to the pouches on his plate carrier for a full mag. Flopping back on his belly, more gun fire attempted to catch up with him. Locking the new magazine in place he again pointed his AK barrel through the gaps between the ornamental sculpture foliage that decorated the cloisters.

The other mercenaries acted in a similar manner, firing and then ducking down behind cover and changing position, reloading on the move as best they could.

When Deckard acted on a hunch and fired on suspected targets, he drew a large volume of enemy fire but it simply was not as accurate as that of the mercenaries. Even though they were at a disadvantage and outnumbered two to one, the firefight was nearly over after several magazines worth of firing and maneuvering from each man. They had homed in on their targets and fired with both speed and accuracy, adding volume as appropriate.

“Cease fire, cease fire!” Deckard yelled.

There was plenty of gunfire raging on the roofs above them but there was no indication of enemy movement in the courtyard. Still, better safe than sorry.

“All stations on this net,” Deckard transmitted. “I'm taking a friendly element through the northwestern courtyard. Check fire.”

Deckard let his AK hang by the sling and opened a pouch on his plate carrier. Inside was a yellow smoke grenade canister.

“Who else has a smoke?” he asked in Russian.

One of the mercenaries produced a High Concentrate smoke grenade. Deckard's colored smoke was supposed to be used for creating visible signals for friendly helicopters and such while the Kazakh's was for concealing movement. Both would serve their purpose in this instance.

“You throw near and I'll throw far,” Deckard told him. Pulling the pins, both men tossed their smoke grenades into the courtyard and waited for them to begin billowing smoke. In case of any cartel gunmen in windows or anywhere else, they wanted their movement concealed while they crossed the large open area to the other side of the courtyard.

“Go!”

Deckard shot off and disappeared into the smoke. The white smoke surrounded the mercenaries as they ran across the open ground. They had nowhere to go but forward. When he moved through the white smoke and into the yellow smoke he knew he was almost there. Emerging on the other side of the courtyard, Deckard found himself exposed out in the open but it was a short sprint back under the cover of the next exterior hallway.

Under the vaulted ceilings and somewhat behind the cover of the cloisters facing out into the courtyard, Deckard tried the large wooden door and found it locked. An explosion sounded up on the rooftop. Over the assault net, Deckard could hear dozens of voices. Some of them were high pitched, the firefight becoming an all out frantic battle for survival at close range. One by one, the Kazakhs emerged through the smoke and joined him at the door.

Deckard used his hand to motion laying a strip down the side of the door, a hand and arm signal to let his Kazakhs know that they needed to blow the door. One of the mercenaries came forward to unroll a flex linear charge. Peeling back the transparent film on the contact side of the charge, he stuck the triple strand detonation chord down the side of the door. With the task completed, he tied in the initiation system and the entire assault element backed off to a safe distance, the demo man trailing shock tube behind him that connected to the explosives.

The mercenaries stacked up, one behind the other. The first man pulled security on the door while the second initiated the charge. Wooden splinters went flying into the courtyard as the explosives ripped through the door. The Samruk International mercenaries pushed through the door and began clearing their sectors of fire.

As each assaulter high stepped over the destroyed door, they also had to step over the body of a cartel gunman who had been guarding it and had gotten a little too close to the blast. A wooden shard had penetrated his skull right between the eyes. They found themselves in an old archive with books and manuscripts overflowing from shelves that lined the walls.

At the end of the oblong shaped room was the next doorway. Deckard rolled his last fragmentation grenade through the door and held his men back as they waited for the blast. The rumble shook the ground beneath their feet. Flowing into the next room they were greeted by enemy gunfire. Another archive room had been prepared with a built up fighting position inside it, a sandbagged pill box that protected a M240B machine gunner. They had been waiting in ambush all along.

The sandbags had protected the gunner from Deckard's frag grenade, and now the first two assaulters were cut down by a wall of lead as they entered the room. On hearing the heavy rattle of the bolt hammering away at bullet after bullet, Deckard came in low. He was already halfway through the door as the number three man and was not able to turn around unless he wanted to get shot in the back.

It was a second archive room and scraps of shredded paper rained down on the former Special Operations soldier as he dived to the ground. The number four man also made it through the door and dropped down beside him. The remaining five Kazakhs halted at the door before the machine gun could slice them to ribbons. That didn't stop the gunner from wildly pouring fire through the door and raking it across the shelves of 15th Century manuscripts.

They had also thoughtfully removed the desks and other furniture from the room to give the gunner an open field of fire. Deckard clicked the selector switch on his AK-103 up from semi to fully automatic.

“Bound up,” Deckard ordered the mercenary next to him. They only had a moment to act before the gunner realized that they had dived to the ground rather than collapsed under his fire.

Coming to a knee, Deckard locked the AK into the pocket of his shoulder and held on tightly to the pistol grip and fore end, wrenching the rifle into his body. Holding down the trigger with a gloved finger, he sprayed the aperture where the machine gun barrel was blasting rounds from.

The gunner jerked a burst of fire that crept right up to Deckard's flank and sprayed just inches to his side and up the library shelf behind him. The mercenary on his opposite flank sprung to his feet and ran for the pillbox. The reciprocating charging handle on his Kalashnikov continued to cycle back and forth, the bolt spitting out hot brass as the M240B gunner pivoted his gun and homed in on the mercenary that was bounding forward.

Deckard's gun went dry but the other mercenaries were now coming through the door to support their comrades. Deckard dropped the mag and executed a combat reload in less than a second, but that second cost the mercenary running to the bunker his life.

Even with the other Kazakhs laying down their suppressive fire, their teammate was cut down before Deckard and the remaining four mercenaries converged their fire on the aperture and the M240B fell silent. Crossing the room, Deckard came into the pill box from behind and put a couple insurance rounds in the machine gunner. He examined the M240 but noted that the receiver had been damaged in several places, including the trigger assembly having been shot off.

So much for commandeering the weapon.

Coming up to the next door, they could hear men scrambling on the other side and the distinctive click and clack of weapons being made ready, magazines locked into place and bolts racked back to chamber the first round.

“It is clear,” Deckard yelled in Spanish. “I machine gunned the gringos to pieces!”

When the door opened, Deckard held his AK out from behind the corner, only exposing the weapon and his hands while letting off a burst on full auto. The blind fire caused enough confusion to give one of the Kazakhs time to lob a frag grenade through the door.

The mercenaries chased the blast, stepping across the threshold to opposite sides of the door. As Deckard moved behind them his vision suddenly whited out and he felt pressure in his ears. Stumbling backwards he tripped and fell. As his vision began to clear, two human forms in front of him abruptly merged into one, a man with long black hair and carrying an M-4 rifle in his hands. The shooter was reaching out to grab him by the collar of his camouflage uniform when Deckard got his AK back up and held down the trigger. He rattled through the rest of his final magazine but didn't hear a thing.

His would-be assailant spun and jerked as 7.62x39 bullets tugged at him, churning his insides into a mess before finally going down under the torrent of gunfire.

Before he could make it to his feet, he saw another cartel gunman turn towards him, having heard the shots from Deckard's Kalashnikov. He was still seeing stars floating across his field of vision as he acted on muscle memory, his dominant hand going down to the drop leg holster on his right side and thumbing down the retention hood as his palm came to rest on the grip of the pistol.

Yanking the 1911 out of the holster, Deckard held it out in front of him and squeezed off round after round until the gunman went down. Getting to his feet, he staggered forward, his empty Kalashnikov bouncing off his chest as it hung from its sling.

Through blurry vision, he saw the two remaining Samruk men being led off at gunpoint. The three of them had been stunned by a flash bang grenade giving the enemy enough time to pounce on them. They dragged the two Kazakhs off but were unable to capture Deckard alive before he gathered his wits.

Gaining target acquisition, Deckard took out one of the cartel gunmen who had been leading the Kazakhs outside. As he went down one of the other gunmen returned fire forcing Deckard to take cover behind an overturned desk. With his slide locked back on an empty chamber he reached for the magazine pouch on his pistol belt. The now empty AK was in the way so he shrugged out of the sling and sent it clattering to the ground before reloading the pistol.

Thumbing the slide release, Deckard rose from behind cover and fired a snap shot at the gunman standing in the door way. It was a rushed shot, but the .45 caliber bullet ricocheted off the stone wall and into the gunman's eyes, sending him bucking backwards.

The final gunman was pushing the Kazakhs forward. They had caught the brunt of the flash bang distraction device and were still suffering from its effects. Others reached through the doorway and pulled them forward as Deckard fired off a couple of rounds at the riflemen herding his comrades forward, just a moment too late.

Dashing forward, Deckard let his 1911 lead the way as he crossed through the door and into the bright light of another courtyard outside.

Something slammed behind him, causing the combat veteran to immediately go to ground. Behind him, he could see that a giant wood door had dropped down in the entrance way, trapping him in the courtyard.

With little option he continued into the courtyard.

Once outside he looked around and saw that he was surrounded by a giant wooden facade that completely encircled him. Directly to his front, standing up on a platform was Jimenez and his lieutenant, Ignacio. They had baited him into a trap.

They had lured him into their arena.

39

Deckard stood in the center of the arena.

Aiming down the iron sights along the top of his 1911, the mercenary squeezed off rounds into the center of the entourage surrounding Jimenez. Several cartel gunmen went down before the slide locked to the rear.

Jimenez tore a giant revolver from the holster on his hip and let loose a round that splashed in the dirt just inches from Deckard's booted foot. The gun in the drug lord's hand was massive, a Smith and Wesson Governor if he wasn't mistaken, chambered for .410 shotgun shells.