Direct Action - 03 Page 13
“I'm black!” Deckard yelled as he ran onto the patio and took cover behind a concrete planter.
Nadeesha picked up the rate of fire from a kneeling position next to him.
Deckard loaded his last magazine. They were only carrying enough gear to last them for a five-minute surgical operation. Now they were in combat and running low on ammo fast. Letting the Ingram MAC-10 hang by the elastic bungee cord, he went back into his kit and quick-attached the initiation system to the half block of C4 he carried. Pulling the time fuse, he stuck the charge in the planter.
Sixty seconds of time fuse.
It was to be used in case De Jesus retreated into a safe room they had missed during recon. Now, the charge would cover their withdrawal.
Nadeesha went empty on her sub gun. Now it was Deckard's turn to fire.
“Bound back,” he ordered Nadeesha between bursts.
The return fire was getting intense as a couple dozen guns for hire wearing full SWAT team get ups stormed the pent house. 5.56 rounds zinged and popped around him, many chipping into the planter he was taking cover behind. The kitchen windows exploded outwards as gunmen inside found new firing positions.
Nadeesha reloaded on the move and took a position next to a large heating and air conditioning unit on the roof near the pool. Deckard threw his last hand grenade at the open door as a couple of security guards attempted a break out. Ducking behind the planter, the explosion stopped them dead in their tracks. At least for a few more seconds. As Nadeesha fired, Deckard ran back to her position.
“Jump!” He yelled in her ear over the gunfire. “I'll cover you.”
She looked up at him with wide eyes.
“Okay.”
Deckard popped around the corner of the HVAC unit and took single well-placed shots with the MAC-10. He was almost out of the ammo and by his estimation, only 30 seconds of time fuse remained. He caught another muzzle flash in the kitchen window so he fired a shot there and the muzzle flash went away.
Nadeesha turned to run for the edge of the building. She let out a scream as enemy gunfire hit her from behind. She stumbled and fell to the ground alongside the pool. Sensing wounded prey, the gunmen inside the penthouse fired on her, bullets chiseling the tile next to her and making splashes of water in the pool to her flank.
Deckard ran out into the open and laid down suppressive fire with what he had left in the MAC-10. The gun cycled empty and Deckard dropped it in the pool. Without slowing down, he scooped Nadeesha up and dragged her forward. He propelled both of them back behind another concrete planter. It was their last piece of cover; they were all out of building. A few feet away was a fifty-five story fall to the streets below.
He tore her MAC-10 off her kit and shot a burst over the planter without sighting in on anyone specific. The guards were bounding out of the doorway and moving towards them. He could hear them trying to coordinate their movements in Tagalog.
Deckard looked over his partner. The rounds had torn apart her second parachute, the reserve she would need to get off the building.
“Fuck,” he cursed.
“Go,” she mumbled. “Just go.”
It was time to go.
Deckard grabbed her hands and put them around the main lift web on his own parachute.
“Don't let go for anything.”
Wrapping an arm around her, he dropped the MAC-10 and grabbed the ball on his parachute that pulled free the pilot chute.
He heard the enemy shouts as he stood up. Two steps forward and he was off the ledge and into the night.
Nadeesha's scream died in her throat.
Deckard released the pilot chute as they fell.
The C4 detonated as his parachute caught in the wind, clearing off the top of the Aquino building. The parachute popped open while they flashed by still-lit offices in the building under the penthouse. Nadeesha hung on to his parachute harness, her legs kicking in the empty air.
“Don't let go!” she screamed.
“I have to!”
They were tracking forward and were seconds away from impacting the adjacent building. Deckard could see the desks and swivel chairs inside the offices as they were about to slam into the window.
Releasing his hold around Nadeesha, he reached up and grabbed the parachute toggles while she clung to the parachute harness. Yanking down hard on his right toggle, they cut a hard turn. The two of them dangling under the parachute, they nearly brushed up against the office building.
Nadeesha looked like she was about to panic. She pulled herself up as she held on to the harness and wrapped her legs around him.
Deckard knew they were burning altitude fast. The street lights below swirled like a kaleidoscope as he twisted and turned the parachute, angling towards the Ayala Gardens.
A military parachute was designed to safely carry two entangled jumpers and their equipment to the ground. This wasn't a military parachute.
They were coming in hard, their feet passing just a couple meters above the Paseo Center before they cleared it and went out over the gardens. Deckard wanted to make an adjustment to keep them out of the trees but nothing he did mattered at this point.
The ground came up to meet them. Deckard grunted as he made impact and slid on the wet grass. Rolling, his vision redded out for a second when the back of his head hit something. He felt a weight on his chest as the parachute collapsed on top of him.
He opened his eyes to see Nadeesha almost nose to nose with him. Her pink lips were next to his as they both took short ragged breaths. It was dark underneath the parachute, everything forgotten for a moment.
Nadeesha buried her face in Deckard's neck as she held on to him.
“Ho-ly she-it,” a low-pitched voice said.
“Did they come in on one chute?” another asked.
“That was some gangster-ass shit.”
Deckard tried to sit up with Nadeesha on top of him.
Bill and Ramon tore the parachute off of them. The accidental tandem jumpers were now hopelessly entangled in their parachute and the suspension lines.
“Fucking hell,” Rick said as he ran up to them. “It was like the entire rooftop blew up as you fell off.”
Zach came up and joined Bill and Ramon who were using their knives to cut through the suspension lines. Deckard sat up with Nadeesha on his lap.
“Thanks for covering our withdrawal,” Deckard said dryly.
That snapped Nadeesha back into the zone.
“Yeah, thanks for nothing you assholes.”
“I thought you were covering our withdrawal,” Zach insisted.
“We did, and were hoping you might do the same.”
“Whatever,” Bill said cutting in. “Stop complaining. You're alive.”
Nadeesha shook her way out of the suspension lines and stormed off. Deckard undid the buckles on his harness and dropped it. Police sirens were approaching in the distance. Paul was at the dropzone as well. He missed landing on the building but obviously had managed to make it down to the ground in one piece.
“Time to boogey,” Ramon said.
Deckard left the tangled parachute as they ran for the van. They didn't have time to police it up, and none of the gear could be traced back to them anyway. As the first red and blue lights came flashing up to the park, Ramon fired a burst into the hood of the police car. The cops got the message and did not pursue, opting to call for back up instead.
Liquid Sky piled into the back of the van. Ramon took the wheel and began navigating through the Manila streets as they left the gardens.
The police had already thrown up one road block heading out of the metropolitan area. Ramon threw a light jacket on over his kit. The others stayed in the back of the windowless van so they would not be seen.
“Konting pabuya para sayo bossing,” Ramon told the cop in Tagalog as he handed him a folded bill.
“Salamat at magingat po kayo sir,” the policemen said with a smile.
13
“It happened again.”
“You're kidding me,” Corbett said as he sat back in his chair. “Again?”
“I'm afraid so, sir.”
“Who the hell is doing this?”
“We're about to sit down in the SCIF and try to hammer that out right now.”
Admiral Corbett left his desk and followed his right hand man down the hallway. A vault door was open which led into the Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility. This was where sensitive operations and intelligence were discussed and records stored. At JSOC, practically everything was sensitive.
“Where?” Corbett asked.
An assistant J2 intelligence officer turned to his commander.
“Manila. It was Kanor De Jesus.”
“I remember the name. He was on the SIGMA-11 target deck.”
“Yes, sir,” the intel officer confirmed. “Two TF Green attempts, one TF Blue, and local competitors tried to bump him off a couple times as well.”
“What happened?”
“We're still trying to piece it together. We have someone from The Activity on the ground working with local authorities. The police found a parachute in the park nearby which explains how the killers got off target, but no one knows how they got there to begin with. We've had the special entry troop working this problem set for months. The building is a fortress.”
“What the hell is going on? This is our third target that someone else took out in nearly as many weeks. First those guys working for Karzai that the bed-wetters in Washington wouldn't let us touch, then Hezbollah's main money man gets whacked in Dubai. Now this?”
“It has happened before. De Jesus had hits put out on him by both the NPA and Abu Sayaf. Whenever these guys carve out a piece of the local black market for themselves, there is always a competitor who wants that slice of pie for himself.”
“Too many coincidences,” the Admiral stated. “And the hits are too precise, too well-planned. The Israelis are good but they don't have this kind of reach. Besides, they wouldn't play in our backyard without a courtesy call.”
“What about Langley?” the J3 said as he rolled his eyes.
“They are ready for a tele-conference right now,” the J2 said.
“Put them on,” the Admiral said as he sat down at the long table in front of a projection screen.
The screen came on showing a bald headed CIA officer in a suit sitting next to a Army Officer in his Class A uniform, a Special Forces liaison officer detached to Central Intelligence.
“Hey Russ,” the CIA officer said, addressing the JSOC Admiral by his first name. Technically, they were of equivalent ranks but they also had a working relationship stretching back to the first days of the War on Terror.
“Francis, I need some help here.”
“I heard. Someone is working your target deck.”
“Talk to me.”
Francis shook his head. The Special Forces officer clasped his hands in front of him on the table.
“It's not us, brother.”
“You know I don't believe in coincidences.”
Admiral Russ Corbett sat back in his chair. He didn't ask questions that he didn't already have the answers to. He knew Francis was telling him the truth because the CIA had hired dozens of former JSOC operators to do their dirty work. Those operators had loyalty to the home team and kept JSOC informed of everything the agency was up to around the world. He was simply hoping that Francis could help him unravel this puzzle.
“I hate to say it Russ, but do you think someone over there is saying some things they shouldn't to some people they shouldn't be talking to?”
“SIGMA-11 is locked down. We can do an informal 15-6 just to snoop around but the CI around that program is air tight.”
“I hope so,” the CIA officer said. “Because I agree with your assessment. Someone is working your target deck and for both our sakes, we better find out who it is fast before this shit blows up in both our faces. You know how this works. Our fingerprints are on SIGMA, so we'll take the fall for whoever these chuckleheads kill.”
“It could jeopardize other programs as well.”
They both knew what programs he was referencing. Collection and sabotage in a country whose name started with an I and ended with a ran.
“Get this done, Russ. I'll let my people know to help you however they can.”
“Thanks Francis, I appreciate it.”
The screen blacked out as the teleconference ended.
The Admiral took a deep breath.
Someone was working their target deck, but it wasn't Special Operations, the CIA, or even an allied country. It was time for the Admiral to make a phone call to an old colleague. He had been his predecessor as the commander of JSOC. A General who had been publicly disgraced and removed after a series of revelations in the newspapers. It was known to those in the know that the General could get more done on the outside through his commercial endeavors than he ever could as military officer.
It was time to call General McCoy and see what he was up to these days.
14
The exfil was more like an all expenses paid vacation. Liquid Sky quickly forgot that they were still on a mission, relaxing on the pump boats that ferried them south. All of their kit had been sunk to the bottom of the ocean the moment the opportunity presented itself. Their pilot had headed for the South China Sea, where he could hide out for a while. The assault team took a separate route, using a ratline that Ramon had established prior to them arriving in the Philippines.
They were called banka boats, and were used for fishing and as water taxis between the various islands in the Philippines. The Liquid Sky mercenaries sipped on beer and worked on their tan while they were transported in a lazy, winding path that took them generally south. Unlike air travel or even vehicle traffic, maritime transportation was the least monitored, and allowed for low-visibility movements over long distances.
After a week of cruising alongside some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, they island-hopped over to Sabah in Malaysia, where their pilot met them on an airfield in his Twin Otter. From there, they flew back to Darwin, Australia.
Back at the staging site, Bill ordered his two non-performers to tear apart the mock-up of the objective. Rick for failing in the simulator and Paul for failing to make it to the target during the mission. They grudgingly went about their task. The others prepared for an epic beer blast. The pilot and the technician who ran the simulator for them were both invited.
That night all the wood from the mockup was piled up and set ablaze.
The technician was coerced into drinking a bottle of vodka. Zach was less successful in coercing Nadeesha to give the tech a lap dance but eventually she relented. Cheers went up as she began grinding on his crotch. The beer and liquor was flowing, and everyone was finally relaxing for the first time in weeks. The technician promptly stood up as Nadeesha was rubbing his face in her cleavage. She fell into the grass as the gentlemen stood with a big dumb smile on his face and projectile vomited a half gallon of vodka into the bonfire.
That got even more cheers than the lap dance.
Their pilot was buzzed out of his mind from smoking marijuana and could only muster a half-assed applause.
“Deckard, I need to talk to you,” Bill said as he walked up to him.
They walked off to the outer edge of the fire while the party continued. Bill snorted through his nose and spat a snot ball onto the ground. When he turned to Deckard, his face was half concealed by the dark, the flickering light of the fire lighting the other half of their faces.
“I didn't want to talk to you about operational details until we were back to safe ground. That was some ballsy shit you did back there.”
“Which part?”
“All of it. Sticking the landing fo
r one. Then jumping onto a chair while sliding across the room firing on full auto. That was some Bruce Willis shit. I can't believe you pulled it off.”
“We ran out of options, that's all.”
“The only reason why I left you on that rooftop was to make sure you could survive when you were really in a tight spot.”
“And Nadeesha?”
“I didn't know the girl's parachute was going to get shot the fuck up, obviously. Again, pretty ballsy getting her off the roof like that. I'm shocked that you two are alive, or at least not rocking a full-body cast.”
“I'm hard to kill.”
Bill held out his hand. Deckard took it.
“Welcome to the team.”
“Thanks, I-”
“250,000 dollars will be deposited in a Mauritius bank account for you. Payment for the three ops you've done for us. Don't let me see you sober again tonight.”
With that, Bill walked off to find another beer.
Deckard stood by the fire, his eyes getting lost in it for a moment.
“Don't let it go to your head, Deckard.”
He turned and to no surprise, he found Rick lecturing him. He was obviously half in the bag, already shaky on his feet and slurring some of his words.
“What's that?”
“Your amazing one combat operation with us. That other bullshit doesn't even count.”
“Whatever man.”
“Yeah, whatever man. That's all you got? I know you, Deckard. I've seen your type and you are not prepared to go all the way.”
“Obviously you missed my crash landing. Two jumpers, one chute, C4 burning down on the way out.”
“You don't have the balls to do everything that is necessary. My old unit has been fighting this war for a long time. That's why all the SEALs on this team know how it is done. We know how to show those savages who is the alpha dog. Killing is the only language that makes sense to them. That's why we take scalps. It's about sending a message.”