Alone and Unafraid (American Praetorians Book 3) (36 page)

“We need to decide which vehicles we can do without,” he said.  “I think we’ll need at least two.  Then we get as much fuel as we can spare, along with anything flammable, drag them in here, and set them to blow with a couple of blocks of Semtex.  Make it messy; lots of smoke and fire.  We set charges at the entrances to the building, and another on the back wall, to make another breach.  I don’t think they’ve got much out to the west of us; they haven’t shot at us from that direction at all.  We have the vehicles we’re taking staged by the wall.  Blow the vics in here, get things burning, and drop the return fire down to nothing.”

“Let ‘em think there’s no resistance left,” I said.  I was seeing what he was getting at.

“Yep.  When they come in, blow the charges at the entrances, blow the west wall out, and get out as fast as we can.  We’ll probably take some fire, but it’s better than nothing.”

I nodded.  The firing from the east side was picking up again.  There was still a good chance we’d all get killed doing this, but like Mike said, it was better than nothing.  “We shouldn’t pull anyone else off the perimeter to do this,” I said.  “The three of us will have to do the leg work.  Let’s go, we’ve got precisely no fucking time.  Eddie, you go around and get the guys read-in, Mike and I will get started on the vehicles.”

Without any further delay, we got to work.  Eddie scooted off into the dark of the factory building, going to each wall to tell the guys on the perimeter what the plan was.  Mike and I headed to the south end, where the vehicles were staged.

It quickly became apparent that we wouldn’t have much choice as to which trucks to use.  Several of them had taken near hits from mortars, and were definitely out of commission.  One had a good chunk of its engine compartment mangled, and three were sitting on their rims, riddled with shrapnel, the windows starred and smashed.  The Bear was completely fucked; it looked like it had taken a direct hit.  A few small fires were flickering in the wreckage, but the fuel hadn’t caught yet.

“Looks like we’ll have to clown-car it,” I muttered, as Mike and I dashed to the nearest truck that looked like we could at least move it into the factory.  We had rifles up, scanning for more assaulters, but they seemed to be concentrated on the north and east; geometries of fire precluded much more than that.

It took several minutes to get two of the nearly-wrecked but still mobile pickups inside.  I handled that part, while Mike moved the three HiLuxes with the least damage behind the building.  We took a few desultory pot-shots from the east, but the guys on the east side of the building were keeping most of the assault force out there occupied.

Eddie had already prepped most of the explosives and grabbed what little fuel remained that we could spare.  Several of the fuel cans on the damaged trucks had been ripped open by frag and most of the diesel had drained out.  There wasn’t a lot of other flammable stuff around the factory, either.  What little there was would have to do, though.  We were out of options.

I heard a yell from the east side, just before a tank shell thundered into the factory wall above our heads.  It knocked most of us flat, those who weren’t already.

Eddie ran over from where he had been planting the door charges.  “The Abrams is inside the wall,” he reported.

“Is it close enough we can get a shot at it?” I asked.

He shrugged.  “Maybe.  I’m not optimistic about an RPG’s chances against a fucking Abrams, though.”

“I’m not either, but it’s all we’ve got.  We need a couple more minutes, and if that thing flattens this place before then, we’re fucked.”

But we weren’t going to get a couple more minutes.  The second round slammed into the wall just above the rolling doors, smashing rubble across the bay.  We were out of time.  “Get back to the west wall!” I called out.  “Get on the vehicles and get ready to move!”  Eddie had radio controlled initiation systems set for all the charges except the one on the south door.  It would have to do.

Somebody had been thinking along similar lines as I had; an RPG-27 banged out at the tank, only to be answered by a stuttering barrage of 12.7mm machine gun fire.  I hoped whoever had fired that shot, Praetorian or Project, had gotten out of the way in time.

The guys fell back, keeping up the fire through every opening to the east.  The volume of fire from that direction was continuing to intensify, as the jihadis advanced under cover of the tank.  Bullets snapped through windows and doors, smacked chips off the walls and the window frames, and kept us as low as we could get while still moving.

Then we were out back and piling into the HiLuxes.  Weapons were trained north, south, and through the back door that we’d filtered out of.  There was no rollup door on the west side, just a regular double door, that wouldn’t stop much in the way of fire, not that the rollups would, either.

I punched Eddie in the shoulder.  He didn’t respond immediately, but waited until he heard another tank round, then punched the first of the initiators.

The blast from inside was muffled, but soon flames started to flicker through the doorway, and black smoke started pouring out of every opening in the thoroughly perforated factory.  The firing died down, but didn’t entirely stop.  They’d taken a walloping at our hands that night, and they weren’t taking chances.

The timing of the next part was little more than a guesstimate.  We were all back on the trucks now, and didn’t have eyes on the Abrams or the oncoming assaulters.

A silhouette appeared around the north corner, yelled something in Arabic, and fired a burst toward us.  The jihadi was cut down in seconds.  Eddie punched all three initiators.

The north and east entrances to the factory exploded, the detonations shaking the ground and throwing smoke and debris well over the factory roof.  At the same time, the west wall of the compound blew out.

It wasn’t a clean breach; there were still some bricks at the base.  The lead truck powered over them anyway, scraping part of the undercarriage but managing to get through without high-centering.  The next two followed.

We were crammed into those trucks about as tight as it was possible to get.  I was in the back of the last vehicle out, my boots jammed up against the tailgate, my rifle aimed off the back.  I wasn’t even sure who was stuffed in on either side of me.

We took fire from the cordoning forces as we raced out into the desert, but it was hasty and mostly wide and high.  Then we were out of range, engines screaming as the drivers pushed the trucks out into the night, trying to put as much distance between us and that little corner of hell as possible before ISIS got its shit together and came after us.

I couldn’t quite believe it.

In all the confusion, we hadn’t left anyone behind.  Anyone living, anyway.  Marcus was in a bad way.  He was unconscious, his pulse thready.  He’d need medical attention beyond what we could give him, and fast.

What had been left of Chris’ body had been left behind.  So had Carnivore, Carter, and Ledeen, who had launched that last RPG.

We were back at the well where we’d staged before, risking a little bit of red light to check for wounds.  Just about everyone had something.  We all looked like gritty, blackened husks of human beings.  The red light just made us all look a little more hellish.

The standoff that was developing didn’t help matters.

As soon as we’d stopped and gotten out of the vehicles, the four remaining Project guys had drawn off, hands on weapons.  None of us had much ammunition left, but any trust that had been there for the sake of survival was now gone.  My grisly execution of Carnivore had pretty well ensured that was going to happen.  They’d seen what I’d done to him, and now expected the same to happen to them.

Black may not have noticed first, but he was the first one to say anything, as the rest of us, aside from Larry, who was doing what he could to try to stabilize Marcus, started to spread out, forming a little crescent around the Project types.  “What are you doing, Tiburon?” he asked.

“Surviving,” he replied.  “You think I don’t know how this game is played?  We stand down, you take us into custody, at best we disappear into some black site somewhere.”  He shook his head.  “Not happening.  The people behind us
will
find out where it is, and they’ll put us down along with anyone else there.  They don’t fuck around.  They’ve got bottomless pockets and they aren’t hindered by sentimentalism.  They’ll do whatever it takes to bury what needs to be buried and salvage anything else.  No, better for us if we disappear on our own, and go link back up with them.”

“Not.  Fucking.  Happening,” I said. 
“If you think I’m letting you run loose to run this kind of bullshit again, you’re out of your mind.”

“You don’t fucking get it, do you?” he snapped.  “I don’t give a shit what kind of idealistic horseshit they fed you to send you after us.  That’s the kind of shit they feed saps like you to fuck with people like me, who get shit done.  We were getting shit done.  You came and fucked it up, and for what?  Do you even know who’s paying you?”

I ignored the question.  I’d deal with that problem when it came time.  “You know the kind of animals you were aiding and abetting.  You really don’t see a problem with that?”

He shrugged. 
“They were tools.  We got paid to utilize them.  So what?  They weren’t killing
my
family.”

“I guess the guys they killed just a few days ago don’t count, huh?” Black said.

He went still at that.  “Yeah…about that…”

I’ll give Tiburon this, he was fast.  He didn’t bother with the 416 that was still hanging on its sling across his chest.  He just palmed his SIG, and before anyone could react, he’d pumped three rounds into Black’s guts.

I can’t even really call what happened next a firefight.  Hands snapped weapons up and for a brief moment, the well echoed with gunfire. Muzzle flashes lit up the night like a nightmare strobe light.  Then everything was quiet again, and all four Project guys were on the ground.  I don’t think two of them had even gotten a shot off.

The other two had.  Little Bob was on the ground, clutching his hip.  Black was flat on his back and shuddering, a dark pool widening beneath him.

I got to Little Bob first, rolling him on his side to see if there was an exit wound.  There was, just above his pelvis.  I ripped open his first aid kit and went to work.

“Damn it, Little Bob, why do you keep getting shot?” I muttered.

He gritted his teeth and winced as I worked.  “I’m bigger than you.  Easier to hit a barn door than a fence post.”

“Larry’s even bigger than you,” I retorted.  “And you don’t see him turning into a fucking bullet magnet.”

He cried out a little, then clenched his jaw as I wrapped up the hasty dressings.  He didn’t seem to be bleeding too much; hopefully he’d last until we could get him to Erbil.

I looked up at Jim, who’d gone to work on Black.  He kept trying to dress the wounds for a few more seconds, then stopped.  He looked at me in the dark and shook his head.

We stripped the bodies of any gear, weapons and ammo, and left them for the jackals.  Black’s body went back with us, along with Marcus and Little Bob.  We had more room with the Project guys gone.  Black had been a question mark for a long time, but he’d stood up and chosen his side in the end.  That alone earned him our respect.

Epilogue

We took the long way back, going way out into the desert in western Al Anbar, past Ramadi and Hit before turning back north.  We stayed as far away from habitable areas as possible, though we did still have to cross both rivers.  We holed up in the desert until dark descended again before we tried it.  It was almost twenty-four hours after the fight at the factory before we saw the city lights ahead of us.

We almost lost Marcus twice on the way back to Erbil.  He was in a bad way by the time we finally got him to the hospital.  Little Bob didn’t look much better; the bullet to the hip had done quite a bit of damage, and he was looking pretty gray by the time we got him on a gurney and wheeled into surgery.  Renton was there with Alek, greasing whatever palms needed greasing to get our boys treated quickly and well.

Once the operating room doors closed on Little Bob, Alek turned to me.  Renton stood back by the door, waiting.

“How was it?” Alek asked quietly.  He’d noticed Chris’ absence as well as the wounded.

I kept staring at the operating room door, though I wasn’t really seeing it.  Now that we were in ostensibly friendly territory, the tension of the last few days was starting to unravel, and with it, the adrenaline that had kept me going most of the time.  I felt exhausted, wrung out.  I felt done to death.

“We shouldn’t have made it out of there,” I said flatly after a moment. 
“We were outnumbered, way outgunned, surrounded…we should all be lying dead in that factory.”

“I’d say somebody was looking out for you,” Alek said.  “I’ve seen stranger
things in combat.  Weird, unexplainable shit happens sometimes, brother.”  His enormous hand settled on my shoulder.  “I’m sending you guys home.  Mike’s team, too.  You’ve been through more shit in the last six months than most guys ever have to face in a lifetime.  I’ve got reinforcements coming for Dave’s and Caleb’s teams, and we’ve got an all-new team coming.  Some guy named Rob is leading it; I haven’t met him, but Tom vouches for him, says he’s solid.

“We’re maintaining the contract with the Kurdish Regional Government.  It’ll keep us paid for a while.”  He glanced back at Renton.  “But I think we’ve got some other work coming our way soon, too.  Anyway, you guys aren’t going to see it for a while.  I’ve told Tom to sit on you if he has to; your teams are on the bench for a year, minimum.  You need a break, and I’m not going to listen to any bullshit about it.”
  I didn’t have the energy or the inclination to argue at that point.  A year at The Ranch sounded pretty good right then.  “If you want to train new guys, that’s fine, but you’re staying Stateside for a while.”

I nodded.  “
Message received,” was about all I could manage.

Renton stepped forward as Alek left the room, looking for Mike.  I stirred a little, getting slightly more alert.  I still didn’t know what Renton’s deal was; he could be a friend or an enemy as far as I knew.  He’d done right by us for the most part, aside from asking us to go into a deathtrap that we’d seemingly only esca
ped from by Divine Providence.

“You going to tell me not to get too comfortable?” I asked.

He shook his head, his expression unreadable.  “I wouldn’t dream of it.  Enjoy your break; you guys have earned it about twenty times over.”  He paused.  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Chris.”

I acknowledged the sentiment with a nod.  “What the hell was all this really all about, Renton?  Who the fuck are you?”

He looked around, then inclined his head toward the elevators.  “Let’s find someplace a little more private.”

When the elevator got there, we got in and he pressed the button for the top floor.  Once there, he led the way, still without another word, to the stairs leading to the roof.

It was an overcast day, hiding the mountains to the north.  The ancient citadel loomed nearby.  I followed Renton out onto the rooftop.  He took another look around, scrutinizing everything, as if looking for any sign of someone watching or listening, then turned to me.

“
I know you’ve noticed that the world is getting more chaotic by the day,” he said.

I snorted.  It was how I’d made my living the last few years.  He nodded, and chuckled a little.  “Yeah, I know, kind of a ‘no shitter,’ isn’t it? 
Well, I don’t know how much you’ve kept track back home, but it’s not limited to the rest of the world.”

I nodded.  The dollar was worth less than half what it had been worth five years ago.  The economy was underwater, there were food and fuel riots in some cities, and the cartels were running rampant through the Southwest, along with other armed factions that I didn’t have a very good handle on.  Back home, for the most part, was a shit show.

“Well, there are people with money, power, and influence who are profiting in various ways from that chaos.  We know who some of them are, but even the ones we know of are extremely hard to get at, because of the aforementioned money, power, and influence.  Most of them are very highly placed, or have friends who are very highly placed.”

He sighed, looking out at the Erbil skyline.  “
There’s a power struggle going on…it’s been going on for several years now.  Decades, maybe.  It’s nothing so simple as Republican or Democrat; some are on both sides or neither, depending on how the wind is blowing.  It’s a power struggle that’s being fought mostly with bribes, blackmail, extortion, the occasional murder…and the occasional overseas shaping operation.”

“You’re telling me that
the Project was part of this power struggle.”  I wasn’t asking a question.

“We’re reasonably certain it was, though for which faction is still hard to say.  I can tell you that there was a lot of money going from the Caliphate of the Arabian Peninsula and Qatar into the States.  Whether taking down Iran was the final goal or simply making money for something else, I don’t know,” he admitted.  “We might not know for a long time.  Very little of this gets out into the public eye.”

“And you and your network aim to bring it out?” I asked.

He squinted uncomfortably, looking away.  “Not exactly.  As long as it’s happening in the shadows, it’s relatively containable.  Several of my associates think that if it ever did become public, it would make
Caesar and Pompey look like a playground slap fight.”  He grimaced.  “There are already some who are pushing for that outcome anyway—take a look at the “Occupy” and “Three Percenter” movements.  They’ve gotten a lot stronger lately, and I’m convinced it’s because somebody actually
wants
to precipitate that kind of open clash, both inside and outside the country.”

“So whose side are you on?” I asked.

He smiled slightly.  “That gets complicated.”  He leaned against one of the air vents on the roof.  “While most of us just refer to our little operation as The Network, a few have started calling it the Cicero Group.”  He looked over at me.  “Cicero was one of the few Senators who tried to stop the rise of both Caesar and Pompey.”

“I know who Cicero was,” I said.

“The Network is made up of mostly retired military and intelligence professionals,” he said.  “Every one of us, at one time, swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.  As things get more and more out of control, we’ve started utilizing our skillsets to try to at least mitigate the damage.”

“How so?” I asked.  “A little blackmail, extortion, shaping operations?”

“To some extent,” he said.  “That’s the way things run in the back rooms, where the real decisions are made.”  He straightened.  “We’ll find out who was behind the Project, whichever faction they might belong to, and deal with them.”

“How?” I asked.

“However is necessary, and will do the most good in the long run,” he replied.  “It might be we make them disappear.  We might force them to retire…with their continued health being contingent upon that retirement being permanent.  Or, we might flip them.  It depends on any number of factors.”

He saw the look on my face.  “This is how the game is played, Mr. Stone,” he said, “the way it’s been played for a long time now.  It’s not pretty, it’s barely ethical—and that for a very loose definition of ‘ethical’—and it sure as hell isn’t ‘democratic.’  But ‘democracy’ hasn’t been much more than a buzzword intended to appeal to a target audience for decades now.  It’s about money and power.  ‘Patriotism,’ ‘Service,’ ‘Equality’…all buzzwords.”

“You seem to think your little Network is somehow different,” I pointed out.

“That’s because most of the movers and shakers in the Network really are patriots,” he said.  “Many of them are spending their own money, with little to no return, on these operations.  We find ourselves using the tools and methods we have to
in order to try to bring us back from the brink.”

“And how do I know those aren’t just more buzzwords?” I asked wryly.

He turned and started back toward the stairs.  “You’ve got a year, Mr. Stone.  Investigate all you want.  I know Heinrich is already digging.  I’ll even provide you with some directions to start looking.  But I think you’ll wind up seeing things our way.

“We have a lot more work for you, once you’re rested up.  We’ll be in touch.”