Arisen : Nemesis (31 page)

Kwon also had to keep the team’s own arsenal in perfect condition, as well as overhaul and repair those not functioning properly. He was responsible for planning and ordering ammo for all deployments and storage and security of weapons when they got there. He had to be able to set up and manage firing ranges and train foreign troops on them – in their own language.

When he earned his Green Beret and went out on Team, he knew he was finally where he belonged.

Later, as part of the ongoing and never-ending training, Kwon also completed the Special Operations Target Interdiction Course, or SOTIC, which was conducted at Range 37 – a 130-acre dedicated training facility at Fort Bragg. This was actually the primary basic training course for all Delta snipers, as well as a handful of very lucky long-gunners from other units.

Easygoing, cool, methodical, and logical, Kwon transmitted both strength and strength of purpose. Also, as Jake discovered early on, he was a natural-born killer. He had the sort of lethal instincts that couldn’t be taught. Jake could always count on him to dial the violence all the way up the instant it became necessary, or to modulate it as required. He never flinched – not out of squeamishness, and certainly not from fear. He was quiet, observant, and extremely intelligent.

Physically, he was big for a Korean-American, a solidly built 6’1” – tall, lanky, and muscular, with dramatic features, and a smile that didn’t appear much, but creased the corners of his eyes when it did. He was very cagey, sometimes to the point of being borderline creepy. Not psycho. Just knowing. He wore his straight dark hair short, neatly trimmed and combed. He had a mild, youthful air about him. His voice was soft, confident, almost conversational.

And he was heart-attack serious about all operational matters.

Like Jake, he knew that doing the necessary wasn’t always nice. But it was vitally important that somebody be willing to do it.

And Kwon had raised his hand to volunteer three times: once for the Army, again for the Airborne, and finally for Special Forces.

He soldiered like he was doing it on purpose.

* * *

In the still and silent black of the nighttime forest, his radio earpiece went. The voice on the other end was barely a whisper.

“Kwon, Jake.”

He touched his PTT button one time, a single squelch going out over the squad net. He almost never talked more than necessary. And definitely not on ambush.

“Five mikes out.”

He squelched once again in acknowledgement.

He curled a little further around the 240, leaning his NVGs a little closer to the tritium-illuminated reticle of the MG optic on top of the weapon.

And he hoped Todd wouldn’t clear the field with that minigun before he could run even a single belt through his.

Kill Box

The Stronghold - Near the Emir’s Chamber

On the long walk from “the air traffic control tower,” all the way down to Godane’s dank chamber, Zack gained some information about why the Emir wanted him.

“He wants you to watch and listen,” the guard behind him said in jovial Somali. “You will listen as he kills all your friends. And takes everything they have.”

And Zack thought:
I don’t THINK so, motherfuckers.

But he also shook his head. This thing about murdering and pillaging Triple Nickel was a meme that was gaining local currency – as was the idea that Zack was buddies with them. But he figured that ship had sailed, and he’d never talk anyone here out of it. He only hoped he could stay alive long enough to meet the SF guys in person. But if not, he’d at least performed a noble act – he’d tipped them off. Maybe it would be something for his epitaph. Though he knew he’d be lucky to get even an unmarked grave.

Godane would probably toss his body to the dogs, or the dead.

Entering the inner chamber once more, Zack found it more or less in its usual configuration – Godane behind his desk with his laptop, but also a big radio set, and a few more lackeys than usual. It had the air of a Super Bowl party. One of the lackeys held a hand mic. Zack guessed he was quarterbacking al-Shabaab’s mission – or what passed for tactical control for these asshats.

Zack figured the drone video was being piped straight to Godane’s laptop, even as Baxter flew the mission up above their heads.

It wasn’t clear what was expected of him, so he just stood and monitored the mild bustle. Godane certainly wasn’t inviting him onto the couch to watch the big screen. He had to make way as another lackey came in the door behind him, scurried up to Godane, leaned over, and whispered urgently in his ear.

Godane listened, his expression turning to alarm. He started to speak to the man at the radio in Somali – but then looked at Zack, cut himself off, and continued in Arabic. Zack eyed a patch of floor and willed his face to stay impassive.

But his heart was leaping in his chest.

And when Godane finished speaking, he knew he somehow had to get back to their room – and to the radio –
now
. As to how to effect this, he only had one idea – and no time to think of another one. He walked toward Godane’s desk, talking at him urgently in Somali:
“Amiirka, waxaan idiin sheegi karaa in ka badan oo ku saabsan devels habeenkii—
”

To his fantastic relief, one of the Praetorians shoved him from behind, hard, and Zack used the momentum to lurch into Godane’s desk, catching the edge with his left hand – and making sure to knock the bandage off his middle finger. Blood poured from it. Zack only lamented that none of it got on Godane. As the Emir cursed him, the guard grabbed him roughly, pulled him to his feet, and shoved him back against a wall.

Zack looked around. Apparently that was it.

He waited until the eyes fell off of him then stuck one of his good fingers down his throat – and evacuated the contents of his stomach on Godane’s floor.

Godane made the sort of look of disgust that only the very pure can muster.

“Take this vile dog from my sight.”

That’s more like it
, thought Zack, holding his bleeding finger and trying not to smile, as he was hauled from the chamber.

And back down to his room.

* * *

Brendan grimaced as he listened. He really didn’t like being off the command channel for a live op – in this case, the ambush that was kicking off pretty much any second. Then again, he needed to hear this.

“Say all again after ‘Get your people’.”

The transmission quality wasn’t brilliant.

“I said, GET YOUR PEOPLE OUT OF THERE,”
Zack transmitted from his basement room.
“He knows. They know.”

“Know what, exactly?”

“They know that YOU KNOW they’re coming. They know you’ve been tipped off.”

Brendan’s expression sagged. “How do they know?”

“I honestly have no idea. Maybe they’ve got their drone up at twenty-five thousand feet, while yours is at fifteen. Some other part of the sky. Something.”

“I thought
you
flew Godane’s drone.”

“Not me. And not right now. But you’ve got to trust me – I was just with Godane, and he knows you know they’re coming. And one other thing: it’s at least a hundred personnel. Repeat: one zero zero pax inbound your location.”

“Copy all. Wait out.” Brendan switched channels and hailed Jake.

A single squelch came back.

“Jake, Bren. Be advised, enemy patrol now
knows
you’re waiting for them. How copy?” No response. “Jake, how copy my last?”

Jake’s voice came back – barely even a whisper.

“Copy your last.”

Evidently that was it. Brendan lifted the desk mic. “Master Sergeant, you need to exfil and RTB, over.”

“Negative.”

“Jake, they
know
you’re waiting for them. You’re blown.”

Pause.
“Enemy patrol is walking into our kill zone now, so they sure don’t look like they know. Anyway, I’ve got no choice but to execute now, or they’re going to walk right through our lines. Out.”

Brendan ranted into the mic. “Jake, you’re looking at a hundred pax, they might have split their force – they might be flanking you right now…”

But no one was listening.

Jake had switched over to his squad net.

And whatever was happening out there was going to happen –
now
.

* * *

Kwon sighted in, released half a breath, and took half the slack out of his trigger.

The rest of the team would execute on his signal – which would be when his first rounds cut into the enemy force. He could see them snaking up the forest path ahead and below, having appeared over a gentle rise, and resolved better as they got closer, coming out of the trees.

There were a lot of guys on foot.

And they were heavily encumbered with weapons and ammo.

They were also undisciplined, unarmored, and clearly ignorant of the lethal peril they were walking into – basically, totally helpless.

Just before going silent again, Jake had sent him one last slightly cryptic advisory: to watch his six. But there was nothing behind him but impenetrable foliage, thick tree trunks, and a few rocks. He was tucked in like Goldilocks.

He put his target reticle on the figure at the front of the group, the man’s bobbing white center of mass floating in the thermal-enhanced night vision, and he got ready to start sweeping his barrel from left to right.

He let the enemy patrol work even closer yet – until he couldn’t have missed if he were shooting spitballs from a straw.

Now.

Counter-Ambush

Western Edge of the Cal Madow Forest

Kwon got off a half a dozen rounds before it became the Todd Show.

There’s no such thing as a flash suppressor for a minigun, so a blazing horizontal candle lit up in front of his position in the forest and tore an electric hole through the sparking heart of the black night. Hundreds of giant slugs, another thirty-three every second, ripped into bodies, weapons, packs, trees, dirt – and turned it all into undifferentiated mulch in seconds.

Kwon also fired and traversed his weapon, mainly just to do it. And he could sense Jake and Kate doing the same from their positions. But they were pretty much just watching the minigun devastate the column. Within fifteen seconds, its thick cylinder of barrels was actually glowing red-hot and would be visible even to those without night-vision.

But none of the enemy ever got a shot off – at least not on purpose, and not at first. The incoming fire detonated at least three RPGs – two blew up in place, disintegrating what was left of the guys carrying them, and one auto-launched, screaming off into the forest and exploding on impact with a tree.

American military doctrine in an ambush is to drop to the dirt, throw all your grenades, then charge the ambushers. If you stay where you are, you’re dead. Going forward, fighting through the lines of the ambush, then attacking from the back, was the only chance you had. This doctrine had filtered out, and it had evidently filtered out even to these guys.

As the front ranks went down involuntarily, Kwon saw those in the rear do so on purpose. He then saw three or four arms cock back – but Todd saw it too, and down they went. A couple of grenades got thrown, exploding harmlessly around the dug-in American positions. A couple more blew up beside their former owners. And then the survivors in the rear got up and charged.

Kwon was impressed. These guys were surprisingly well-trained and disciplined. Then again, getting surprised by jihadi sophistication had been a regular feature of the last years of the war on terror. A couple of them even made it as far as the line of claymores Kwon had emplaced out in front of their lines. With a twist of his wrist, he detonated them. The hard-chargers out front went down, like wheat before a scythe.

But the real scythe was the minigun, and Todd was aiming it into the last corners of active resistance. Those a-S guys who had lived this long had mostly found some cover behind stumps of trees, or full-grown ones, or mounds of moss and dirt. The minigun dug them out and uncovered them, or the other three ambushers shot around.

In thirty seconds it was all over.

Todd had the good sense to stop firing when there was no target left vertical, or prone but still firing. There was only so much ammo for that beast left in the world, and no one was making any more. A number of al-Shabaab guys were still crawling or trying to drag themselves off the trail, their motion obvious in NVG-view. Kwon put short, aimed bursts into them, until they stopped crawling.

From his position, he’d put the death toll at about fifty. That had to be a fair little chunk of Godane’s total strength. And as far as Kwon knew it was the entire complement of his assault force. They were all down, all out, and mostly shredded into body parts too mixed up to even bury as individuals. Not that Kwon cared to.

The threat to Camp Price was over.

* * *

They had no plans to move in or around the remains of the patrol. They didn’t need any of their weapons or equipment, if any remained intact. They didn’t want prisoners for interrogation, if any were still alive. And they didn’t care that much about leaving any wounded on the field.

They’d be dead soon enough.

And the walking dead would be here before long.

No, it was just going to be a matter of withdrawing quickly and quietly – packing up, mounting up, and hitting the road. It had taken some off-roading to wrestle the truck up on that ridge and it would take a little more to get it off, after they dug it out from under all its boughs of camouflage. Then, once they got back to the road, they’d have to do a big loop to return to the dirt track that led back to their camp on the other side of the forest, on the western slopes of the mountain.

They were all exhausted – from the sleep deprivation of back-to-back night missions, but also from the aftermath of the adrenaline of this fight. And they still had a long night ahead of them.