The Bonner Incident: Joshua's War (14 page)

Skidding to a halt, Schmidt looked around then turned around. “It was a booby trap! Nobody’s here!”

Winters jumped up, “How in the hell did he get it to shoot and stop and then shoot again? Is he like a watchmaker?”

Grabbing Winters’ arm before she could take off to find out, “Winters, we have to help the wounded and gather the bodies. When we get ready to leave, we’ll go see,” Moore said letting her arm go.

Listening to all the cries for help, she nodded. “I’ll help them, you go look.”

As Winters took off, Moore turned to see the crime scene techs tending to one of theirs that got hit in the arm. Then he saw the Homeland agent who stepped on the punji stick lying next to a tree. “You okay?” Moore asked walking over.

Reaching down, Moore shook him and the agent’s head flopped around and Moore didn’t see him breathing. Putting his fingers on the man’s neck, Moore held them there for ten minutes never feeling a pulse. “What the fuck is he using that can kill this fast?” he said getting up.

He turned to see the other crime scene techs working on the two dead card players. He stepped over, seeing them talking quietly. “Find something?”

One looked up at him, “Yes sir, but I don’t know what it means,” he said. “Both men were holding full houses, Aces over eights, which is impossible for one deck. I was about to photograph the deck and count them.”

Closing his eyes with a sigh, “That hand is called ‘a dead man’s hand’ because Bill Hickok was holding it when he was shot in the back,” Moore said and he opened his eyes. “You already get a photo of its location?”

“Yes sir,” the tech said as Moore bent down and picked up the deck and could tell it was more than one deck. Fanning the cards out, he saw another dead man’s hand at the top of the deck. Looking at the cards, he could tell they were placed this way on purpose.

Closing the deck, “Pack them as is and don’t let them separate,” Moore said handing them over. “There is a message in there.”

“Yes sir,” the tech said taking the cards and putting a rubber band around them. “What of those in their hands?”

“Do the same,” Moore said looking at the two dead men. “Take as many photos as you can before we get them ready to leave. We don’t have time to process the scene and we aren’t coming back so Joshua can play more games.”

The tech nodded as Moore walked away feeling a million years old. Heading up the valley, he found Giles upright but bent over at the waist in the middle of the trail. Looking closer, Moore saw his pants were bloody and then noticed a stick four feet up and horizontal with the ground. A shiver ran down his spine, seeing the long stakes tied to the stick.

Walking around Giles, Moore saw he was dead and looked at the stakes. Letting out a groan, he saw the groove cut in each one and three stakes buried in Giles’ abdomen. “Looks like he won’t get his story or his third season,” Winters said coming over and taking off a pair of bloody surgical gloves.

“That’s low,” Moore said with a drone.

Giving an ‘I don’t give a shit’ shrug, “He should’ve listened,” she said.

“What’s the count?”

“Five dead. They were shot, but the grenades are what killed them. Three more are sinking fast. One was hit in the gut, one in the chest and the other in the neck. I don’t think the neck wound will live more than another ten minutes, if he’s not dead already. Then, we have another nine walking wounded.”

“Get them ready to move,” Moore said in a tired voice and walked past her to Schmidt who was looking around the machine gun.

When he stopped beside Schmidt, Schmidt glanced at him out of the corner of his eye as he waved a hand at the machine gun. “We are so fucked,” he said. “How in the hell did he think of this?”

Moore looked at the machine gun that was hanging in the air. Leaning over, he could tell it was wire tied to the gun at the forward handle and the buttstock. “It’s a gun trap Schmidt.”

“Moore, are you fucking blind?!” Schmidt shouted. “First, look where the gun is set up, in a small cave on a cliff face. There are logs and boulders in front of it to protect the firing position. Now, look at the gun,” he said climbing over the rocks and logs and standing beside the gun.

Pointing at a small log hanging under the gun by wires, “This is a counter balance to keep the weapon from jumping,” he said and pointed at the front. “These sticks here are to keep the gun from firing too far to the left or right and this one, tied to the top of them is to keep the gun from firing up. They are called firing stakes, so you’ll know your field of fire at night. Now, this is the ingenious part, if that wasn’t enough.”

Putting his hand on the machine gun, Schmidt rocked it back. “See this string on the trigger,” he pointed. “It runs back, draped over this stick, and has a heavy rock tied to it. Now, look when I swing it back like the gun is firing being pushed back,” he said easing the gun back. The rock settled on a wide piece of bark with the machine gun rocked back over a foot.

Holding the gun still, Schmidt looked up at Moore. “You can tell the gun is at the end of the arc of the swing, right?” he asked and Moore nodded. “The bark takes the pressure off of the trigger, letting it reset and the gun has lost its rearward momentum because it’s not firing anymore. But since it’s at the end of its swing,” he said and let the gun go.

The machine gun swung forward lifting the rock off the bark and Moore saw the trigger get pulled back again as the rock was lifted off of the bark shelf. “That’s why it was firing in bursts. Firing in bursts doesn’t overheat the gun and you have fewer malfunctions,” Schmidt said and pointed at a huge pile of brass on the ground. “That’s at least four hundred rounds, so Joshua linked at least two belts together but the ready box only holds two hundred rounds and I can’t figure out how he did that.”

Pointing to a stick on the ground with string tied to it, “That’s how it was set off; the rock was balanced on the stick. The trip wire was in front of the toggle release spear trap. When the first man went to help Giles, he set it off,” Schmidt said staring at the machine gun in almost reverence.

“I’ve seen that spear trap before, but I can’t recall where,” Moore said studying the machine gun.

“You’ve seen First Blood, the first Rambo movie?” Schmidt asked and Moore nodded. “It’s used in it.”

“Well, I have to say, this is pretty ingenious,” Moore said, trying to figure out how long it would take to set up.

“Moore,” Schmidt cried out. “Joshua made a fucking remote firing station with some wire, sticks and stones! I’ve seen million dollar robots that weren’t this effective.”

“Yeah, I figured that out. You have a camera?” Moore asked and Schmidt nodded. “Get me photos, then we need to get these wounded out.”

“I’ve called for the choppers,” Wagner said walking up and looking at the machine gun. “How in the hell did he come up with this?”

Shrugging, Moore looked back as the wounded were gathered up. “You can’t land a chopper here and the landing zone is two miles away,” Moore said as Winters walked up.

“One has a hoist and we can get the most critical out with it,” Wagner said.

“How in the hell did you radio out in this valley?” Schmidt asked taking pictures.

“I sent a man up to the ridge and he made contact,” Wagner said as Winters cleared her throat.

“Sir, I’d advise you not to call a chopper in here.”

“I know it can’t land. Didn’t you hear, it has a hoist,” Wagner snapped.

Shaking her head, “Not that sir, in the other ambush site, Joshua made sure the team walked out of his kill zone. It’s his way of saying ‘You’re in my world until I decide to let you out’.”

Seeing Wagner getting ready to unleash, Moore grabbed his shoulder. “Winters, we should be okay,” Moore said and pointed behind the hanging machine gun at a scrench stuck between two rocks. “He’s done with this area.”

Not believing it, Winters gave a huff as an explosion sounded behind them and they all dropped to the ground, waiting for the rest of Joshua’s vengeance. When nothing else happened, they all raised their heads out of the dirt to hear screaming.

“What was that?” Moore asked getting up.

“Hand grenade,” Schmidt said, looking back down the valley. “Joshua put one under the body of the man flipping the bird.”

Grabbing his radio that the group used to keep in touch. “Don’t move any of the bodies of the first team that was hit. We’ll have to send in the bomb techs to retrieve them. How many are hurt?” Moore said lowering the radio.

“We have two dead, sir and another three wounded really bad,” a panicked voice shouted over the radio.

“Winters, go and see if you can help,” Moore said shoving the radio back in the carrier on his waist.

“I’m not a medic,” she said walking off.

“Yeah, but you’re doing a good job for one,” Moore said and turned to Wagner. “Um, I just want to know, do all of your men carry hand grenades in the field?”

“Of course,” Wagner snapped. “We’re authorized to carry them and any weapon we’ve been trained on.”

“Hold that thought,” Moore snapped back. “It’s not bad enough that the BATF and FBI agents are carrying flash bangs out here, but your boys are carrying hand grenades and now have supplied them to Joshua. And,” Moore stressed holding up a finger. “You aren’t trained to use hand grenades; your own men were killed by the grenades your other men threw at the machine gun.”

Moving to the other side of the hanging machine gun and taking more pictures Schmidt asked. “Just how many grenades does each agent carry?”

“Four,” Wagner said and Moore groaned, dropping his stare to the ground. “And each SRT member has been issued a claymore mine for this operation,” Wagner added in a low voice.

“Oh, shit,” Schmidt mumbled, almost dropping the camera.

“Wagner,” Moore said looking up. “You just cost us a bunch of men.”

“We are authorized,” Wagner spat.

“We’ll deal with this later,” Moore growled. “Do you at least have a sniper team that wasn’t killed?”

“Yes, one team is intact. They were going with Giles.”

Giving a sigh of relief, Moore looked up in thanks. “Tell them to set up looking over this area and hide really well. Give them enough food and water to stay here for a week because Joshua is coming back here.”

“You said he was done here,” Schmidt said climbing over the rocks and logs and putting his camera away.

“With us, but I can guarantee you, we haven’t hit all his of traps and he’ll get rid of them so an innocent person doesn’t trip them,” Moore said. “I know it’s shitty to shoot him before he disarms the traps, but this has got to end.”

Wagner grinned. “I’ll have this valley closed until we can get engineers in here to make it safe after we kill him.”

With a perk in his step, Wagner walked away as Schmidt turned to Moore. “So, now you’re on their team to shoot him on sight?”

With a regretful nod, Moore looked over at Schmidt. “We don’t have a choice anymore, Joshua’s going to keep this up until he dies or we run out of agents.”

Hearing the choppers coming, Schmidt walked away. “The public will only watch so many hard military action types of attacks from us against civilians before they get pissed off.”

“They haven’t yet,” Moore mumbled.

***

On a ridge over the valley to the east, Joshua was laying on the ground behind the Barrett. It had taken him some time a few days ago, to put it together and screw the massive suppressor on, but he’d figured it out. After bore sighting it, Joshua had found the crosshairs were almost true to him and had fired two shots to zero it in.

The agent he’d taken it off of, had a PDA that had a program like the one he had on his phone that gave a reading of point of aim when you fed in the distance, bullet weight, etc. When he’d fired the first shot, he’d seen a big flash as the bullet had hit the rock he’d been aiming at and looked over at the black-tipped shells lying next to him. “They really do have armor piercing incendiary rounds for this. I thought the API on the box was where it was made,” Joshua had mumbled.

Now, tucked back in the forest, Joshua looked west at the ridge across the valley that he was overlooking. The next valley was where he had set up his surprises. After listening to the distress call from a Homeland agent on the other ridge, Joshua was pretty pleased with his results and when he’d heard the call to send the choppers, he pulled the Barrett fifty caliber off of Jack.

Picking up his laser range finder, he waited, hearing the thump of the rotor blades getting closer. “You will walk out, boys and girls,” he said lifting the range finder to his eye. Two choppers flew over the valley and one hovered as the other made slow circles around the valley.

Resting the aiming point of the range finder on the hovering chopper, Joshua pressed the button so the laser could tell him how far. “Eighteen hundred and thirty-two yards,” he said with a soft whistle, lowering the range finder to see something descending from the hovering chopper.

Setting the range finder down, Joshua grabbed the PDA and put in the numbers and then adjusted the knobs on the scope, dialing in the range. “I wish I could use my Lapua, but I don’t think it has enough ass to knock those birds from the sky,” he said pulling the stock to his shoulder. Twisting the magnification up to maximum, Joshua settled the crosshairs over the engine compartment and flipped the safety off.